Tag: deputy President

Khama’s attempt to appoint brother as deputy fails

President Ian Khama’s bid to appoint his brother, Tshekedi Khama, as deputy-president has been thwarted as Botswana’s government says it will accept a court ruling to counter the move.

Khama, re-elected for a second term last month, wanted lawmakers to vote by a show of hands for his deputy, instead of through a secret ballot.

A show of hands would have exposed any who opposed his choice.

Khama had faced a backlash from within his own party over the prospect of Tshekedi as deputy-president, with parliamentarians accusing the president of trying to create a dynasty.

Botswana’s High Court on Friday that deemed only a secret parliamentary ballot constitutional. “A secret ballot is a hallmark of a free and fair election within our representative democracy,” said Justice Michael Leburu in the Gaborone High Court.

The executive issued a statement late on Tuesday, saying: “Government accepts that the matter has been resolved and wishes to assure the public that it will respect and fully implement the decision of the court.”

Opposition party lawyers say that the same voting process had been in place unchallenged for years, and was used to endorse Khama as deputy-president in 1999 and 2004.

Botswana went to the polls last month in elections that saw the BDP winning with less than 50% of the vote for the first time since it came to power in 1966.

Though the country is routinely held up as a paragon of good governance on the continent, its ruling party has been criticised recently for attempts to stifle dissent.

Farmers fear wineland inferno

Several wine farmers, including rugby star Schalk Burger’s family, were on high alert as a raging fire destroyed about 1700ha of bush in the Wellington area outside Cape Town.

Firefighters said the fire spread up Bain’s Kloof Pass and onto the Groenberg mountain.

On the Schalk Burger & Sons wine estate, the family was up all night at the weekend keeping watch.

The devastating fires come in the wake of deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa calling on white farmers in the Boland Region to stop the eviction of farm workers.

ANC Provincial Chairperson Marius Fransman called a moratorium on what he calls “mass evictions” of farm workers earlier.

Ramaphosa warned white farmers to embrace the “transformation process” of handing over white property to black workers for no compensation.

He expressed his anger at the evictions, saying that it is totally unacceptable. “We cannot accept a situation where working people particularly on farms are treated as badly,” he said, but could give no examples of mistreatment.

During the door-to-door Campaign in Mbekweni Township, Ramaphosa interacted with various families. He visited a family where a 29-year-old disabled woman, Nthabiseng Tofile resides.

Nthabiseng’s mother told Ramaphosa that her daughter became disabled after an Eskom Pole fell on her in 2004. She was living in a township at the time and not on a farm.

A pending by-election is to take place in the Mbekweni area soon. Fransman says Ramaphosa’s visit has nothing to do with the by-election. He is confident that the ANC will retain the ward.

“Luckily, the fire did not come close to us,” said Schalk’s father, Tiaan Burger.

Another farmer, who did not want to be named, said his farm was on the slopes of the Groenberg.

“The flames were humongous and my father single-handedly started bulldozing a firebreak in the early hours. Our family came from Cape Town to help,” an owner said.

Alien vegetation and fynbos were razed on the mountain and on private property.