Kgalajwe’s parliamentary hopes uncertain

Francistown West Member of Parliament Ignatius Moswaane and his Francistown East counterpart, Honest Buti Billy allegedly connived over the weekend at the ruling party’s regional congress to foil James Kgalajwe’s ambitions to get to parliament.

Just before the weekend regional congress, a BDP insider informed Northern Extra that the former Mayor, Kgalajwe was flexing his muscles to challenge Billy in Francistown East, hence his decision to contest for the Francistown regional chairmanship as a stepping stone to parliament.

Although Kgalajwe refuted the allegations, Billy will not leave anything to chance and has allegedly formed an alliance with Moswaane to frustrate Kgalajwe’s ambitions. Asked about the recent entente, Moswaane admitted having formed an alliance with Francistown East MP to foil Kgalajwe who is aligned to Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s camp ahead of the July BDP congress.

Moswaane pointed out that Kgalajwe and his team have long been tested hence their decision to join forces and vote for a youthful team which has never been tested. “I can confirm to you that I am with Billy in the Nonofo Molefhi camp and there was no way we were going to give the Kgalajwe team any chance at all. We decided to give Badumetse Medupi and Douglas Letsholathebe a green light to represent us at the BDP July congress. We are fighting for the integrity of BDP and no one is going to stop us in our ambition to vote for our chairman and president of choice,” Moswaane said.

Francistown East legislator said that the weekend BDP congress had nothing to do with Kgalajwe as he has long decided to team up with Moswaane before Kgalajwe’s ambitions to challenge him in the next general elections were known. He said if Kgalajwe is a member of the Masisi faction, there was no way Francistown was going to endorse him as the whole region unanimously agreed to shift their weight behind Molefhi.

“It’s all about the integrity of BDP not about Kgalajwe becoming a Member of Parliament. If he harbours such ambitions, he should wait for the right time rather than try to use party positions to win a vote. Under every democratic rule, people are free to contest for their positions of interest, hence there is nothing wrong for Kgalajwe to have a dream of representing Batswana at Parliament level,” Billy said.