BY DUMA GIDEON BOKO*

PRESIDENT OF THE UDC ON 10 AUGUST 2024 AT THE ROYAL ARIA STADIUM

I humbly embrace and welcome each and every one of you, individually and personally. You, the ordinary members of the Umbrella for Democratic Change, are the stars of this event. You are the motivating drive for all the good that we do. I greet you all.

I gratefully acknowledge the leadership of the various structures of the constituent parties of the UDC: the different Leagues: Women’s and Youth Leagues, all the Committees that carry and sustain the organization.

I recognize all our serving Members of Parliament under the able tutelage of the Leader Of Opposition, Dithapelo Keorapetse, as well as all our parliamentary aspirants in the coming elections.

I notice our sitting Councillors as well as our Council Candidates across the breadth and dimensions of our country. An important and constitutionally entrenched cohort of members of the UDC we must never leave behind, comprises the direct members.

They give us character and vitality and we must not only accept them but allow them to participate fully in the activities of the UDC, including contesting for representative positions.

The parties within the UDC; their Central Committees, their veterans and elders, who toil tirelessly are our strength. I thank them. I must single out for special mention the Presidents of Botswana Peoples Party and Alliance for Progressives, fellow members of the Presidium of the UDC. I am much in your debt.

I salute all our invited guests and dignitaries, who have graced this event. We are humbled and encouraged by your presence amongst us. Fellow citizens of this great country, I warmly welcome you.

We are confronted with an arrogant and boastful behemoth in the Botswana Democratic Party. Its leaders strut like peacocks, flaunting their ill-gotten wealth but still colluding to loot some more. Through a raft of self-serving laws smuggled through a weak and ineffectual parliament, public office is being wantonly abused for personal gain by the President and his cronies.

They are all connected in a grand scheme of self-enrichment. The country is being bled dry. They have normalized and legalized theft. The nation pushed back.

For the first time in the politics of this country, we saw an eruption of widespread, collective anger among those exposed to the ills and injustices of this corrupt regime.

Our people stood firm.

The regime changed tact and pulled off its usual political con-game. It postponed its inevitable enactment of those laws, in order to deceive and lull the nation. The people were preparing to take to the streets.

I would like to urge that the nation take that seething anger to the polling booths on election day and deliver another stunning victory against a President aptly described in Barbara Jordan’s characterization as “swollen with power and grown tyrannical”.

He and his circle of looters must be stopped, dead on their tracks. We now know that the economy is on the verge of a total collapse. For the last twelve months to April 2024, the economy experienced zero growth.

It has now surfaced that between July 2023 and April 2024, Government savings fell from P19.1 billion to P5.1 billion; a 75% fall. It is not only the economy that has collapsed under this regime.

The judiciary has lost all integrity. All other institutions such as DCEC, DPP and Attorney General, have been stripped of any credibility.

The rule of law has been eroded with the DIS, led by an unscrupulous and incompetent dimwit, operating outside the law and acting with impunity.

It is not merely a rogue institution; it has now become a terrorist organization deployed to intimidate and brutalize innocent members of society. Batswana live in fear, more of the DIS than common criminals who threaten their wellbeing.

One of the most corrupt and despicable institutions is the so called Independent Electoral Commission, led by one the President’s errand boys.

When the Constitution and the Electoral Act both enjoin the IEC to render free, fair and transparent elections the IEC conspires to commit the most egregious subversion of these imperatives.

Aided by a discredited judiciary, the IEC resisted all efforts to have the UDC deploy observers at voter registration points to provide independent oversight and ensure transparency.

It has also flatly refused to avail electronic copies of the voters’ rolls which would facilitate meaningful and thorough scrutiny and examination by all role players.

Before the bench-marking excursion to the fraudulent Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, ZEC, the IEC provided electronic versions of the voters’ rolls without any difficulty.

The IEC is buoyed in this impropriety by the knowledge that if this were challenged in court, their Chief Justice will surely rig the judicial process and empanel a team of sing along judges to do the President’s bidding.

The election petitions of 2019 remain a shrill reminder of what a corrupt judiciary can do. It is for this reason that the UDC mobilized and marshalled Madibelatlhopho, a nationwide team of citizens and voters ready to monitor the elections and defend the integrity of the vote.

They are guardians of the democratic process. They need our full support. In fact, every citizen who believes in democracy and fair play must enlist and become a part of this movement.

In this way, we will, together, secure a free, fair and transparent electoral process and bring an end to the rampant electoral fraud of the BDP, DIS and IEC.

We call upon all countries represented in Botswana as well as others and international institutions, to maintain a watchful eye on Botswana during this period, all the way to the elections.

Today we unveil our manifesto. We provide a clear outline of what the 2nd Republic will deliver for this country. The UDC presents a programme that will do away with the over-regulation of the business environment which impedes business and frustrates economic growth.

It seeks to create a competitive business climate conducive to the attraction of both market-seeking and efficiency-seeking Foreign Direct Investment.

The UDC will transform Botswana into a regional hub in Tourism and Hospitality, Transportation and Infrastructure, Banking and Finance, Innovation and ICT, Education and Health.

Almost 60 years of BDP misrule have delivered only two outcomes: failure at worst and, at best, lack of success. This curse upon the country must now be broken.

We call upon the marauding energies of our young people, the experience and wisdom of our elders, the deep commitment of all our people to their country; as the pride and boastful noises of this entitled bunch of looters grows even more intense, to rise up, take to the polling booths in numbers, and deliver a stunning victory for yourselves and country.

We must all show up on election day, vote for change and usher in a government able to deliver inclusive growth, quality lives. After almost six decades of the same stagnation and decay, it is time to vote for CHANGE.

It is UDC or nothing.

(C) TPA2024