29 May 2022

Should Botswana adopt direct election of the president, the law must bar must proscribe any motion of no confidence against him or her for two years of assumption of duty.

Making submissions before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Review of the Constitution on Friday, Orapa resident Mr Phalalo Kgang noted that while Batswana should indeed be allowed to directly elect their president, the constitution should protect the person from being thrown out of office soon after assuming the position.

Mr Kgang indicated that in the case where the majority of Members of Parliament were from a different political parties from that of the president, it would be easy for the former to overthrow him or her through a motion of no confidence; hence it was imperative that a clause be in place to protect the president.

Another resident Mr Michael Ntshabele also proposed that the president should be directly elected.

“The sitting president makes a decision about who next president is going to be, on behalf of over 2 million people.

And if our democracy is as vibrant as shown by the consultative nature of this constitutional review exercise, we should not be outshined by budding democracies on this issue,” he stated. Mr Stanford Tebele called for an end to elections in the kgotla.

He said that that some dikgosi who assumed their positions through an electoral process had adulterated the institution by introducing politics into it.

Mr Tebele suggested that the position of kgosi should remain hereditary and that in urban areas, representatives of dikgosi within whose jurisdiction the respective towns fell should be assigned to perform the bogosi duties.

“Ga ke dumalane le tsamaiso e re tlalang kwa kgotleng re bo re tsholetsa matsogo re re re tlhopha kgosi. Go dira jaana go re tlisetsa le batho ba ba sa eteletsang pele dikeletso tsa morafe.

Fa e le gore re le Batswana re dumela gore kgosi e a tsalwa, ga re kake ra boa ra ipona re tlhopha kgosi,” he said. “Jaanong re tshwanetse ra sekaseka tsamaiso e ya go tlhopha dikgosi.

Kwa ditoropong (kwa go senang dikgosi tsa letsalo) re ka nna le barongwa ba dikgosi.” Orapa kgosi Ms Tsholofelo Seisa asked for the law to recognise dikgosi in urban areas.

Kgosi Seisa indicated that presently both the constitution and the Customary Court Act were silent on court presidents and that Ntlo ya Dikgosi composition also had no provision for their membership.

This, she said, was in spite of the complexity of their work, owing to the fact urban areas were melting pots. Councillor Chilume Balopi of Orapa said the primary objective of the citizenship assessment processes should be to facilitate Botswana citizenship to pplicants.

He said many foreigners who had stayed in the country and contributed immensely to its development, doing and with great loyalty, remained anxious over their citizenship applications which took long to proress.

He said such people should be spared the pain of having to wait for a process that is delayed by what is clearly avoidable bottlenecks.

Mr Chilume also suggested the law should allow for polygamy.

He observed that with women outnumbering their male counterparts, the practice would afford women a fair chance at marriage.

Pastor Cathrine Wetshoemang on the one hand denounced polygamy and noted that instead of promoting it, the country should strive to empower its women by making them understand that men are not the centre of the universe and that would could still achieve a lot on their own. ENDS