Now here is something awkward about politics: Let’s just say here we are talking to people who are already in the know of what has been happening with the UDC and BCP in relation to the recent verbal wars sparked by the stand off ahead of the Bophirima Ward by-election. Just how do you navigate the matter of Mankie of the UDC winning the ward on Saturday if you are the UDC Vice President in the form of BCP President Dumelang Saleshando? For here is a man who pulled in a different direction, fielding a candidate under UDC against the wishes of the coalition body UDC, an act that would be followed by bitter exchanges between the party followers. Dumelang and his BCP mates had believed they would win the ward outside UDC and surely had not expected what transpired. Now that a UDC candidate has won, and Dumelang is Vice President of UDC, does he still join in the celebrations? Where there should be a meeting where the UDC leadership is called to give Mankie some induction and blessings, does Dumelang attend? What has transpired since? If anything has changed, pardon this million dollar question as this was written on Sunday just after the Saturday election. Polotiki yone e marara waitse!
Local artists are broke, thanks to broadcasters
There has been talk by government that the broadcasters funded by taxpayers’ money – RB1, RB2, Btv and NowTv – will soon be made to play 80 percent local content and 20 percent foreign content in order to help local artists grow and even make more money than they do now. For the longest time local artists have been praying for such measures to be taken as they have been impoverished by radio and television producers who seem to enjoy giving more airtime to foreign content than to local content. The situation is actually worse with the private radio stations Duma FM, Gabz FM and Yarona FM, with RB2 even more embarrassing as a station funded with taxpayers money. As it is now, RB1 remains the only radio station to play more local music than foreign at about 60-40, with Btv being the only television station doing the same although at about 55-45. The rest give more airplay to foreign music with RB2 being the worst for radio stations at about 20-80 and NowTv shamelessly at about 10-90, according to COSBOTS findings. All private radio stations are at around 20-80 with GabzFM doing a lot better and even more supportive of local content than RB2. It is a pathetic state of affairs and one wonders how much of airplay local artists get in foreign countries. This state of affairs is resulting in local artists receiving very little in royalties, compared to artists who do not even know there is a country called Botswana.
It’s official, SKI dislikes Masisi, not BDP
For the longest time some of us have refused to believe the narrative that SKI is only in opposition politics because of President Mokgweetsi Masisi, and that should the BDP leader step down, the Bangwato chief will return to the ruling party. We have noted over the past few months that SKI never attacks the BDP, but always speaks ill of CAVA instead. Whenever he attacks the ruling party, he calls it CAVA, not BDP. Perhaps because this CAVA thing is associated with a faction of President Masisi when Ian was still a part of the BDP in the run up to the 2019 elections when Ian himself was sponsoring Mma V to oust the president. Also note that for everything negative that happens to the BDP, Ian is always quick to relegate the matter squarely to President Masisi. He couldn’t even hold back on Sunday when he wanted to show his elation and he placed a recording camera in front of himself as he called Mankie Sekete to congratulate her for the victory at the Bophirima ward elections. You could tell the call was never really about to congratulate Mankie, but to get back at President Masisi. He just had to force the name of his nemesis into the congratulatory message and told Mankie that it was actually President Masisi she defeated in the Saturday elections. He had to keep repeating it to an obviously uncomfortable Mankie who refused to go with the line SKI wanted to take. One could tell gore tota Mankie ene ga se motho le tshele, and only kept saying ‘kea leboga’ and ‘thank you’ even when Ian kept drumming in the issue of Masisi being the loser. In the call, SKI never mentioned the BDP, but instead said people were bought to vote CAVA!!!!
In fact, SKI has asked a question – here is the answer
Last week SKI as usual took to social media to ask the question, ‘What’s Next?” Kana SKI these days ke motho le facebook he posts 10 times in a day, 100percent about his nemesis. So last week he wrote:
“From missing P100 billion to missing weapons of war and now Helicopter. What’s next? Soon it will be a missing country.” And perhaps a missing President brother SKI. Now that we have been told magatwe a gore all these things are missing because of you and your so-called cartel of bahumi and government sector heads, we will not be surprised, as you point out, to learn that Botswana too, has gone missing. Looks like you are capable of anything according to your accusers. So you might as well take the President as well, before you take the country as you threaten. Take him, because with a missing President, we will no longer have to read all the things you write everyday and our people will go back to those days of peace and living together in harmony. Ntwa e ya lona e setse e re tsene, so please just take him as well. With all your credentials, you are the only one capable of rendering him missing! Tlaa o mo tsee, once!!
