UDC promises deliberative democracy
Innocent Selatlhwa | Monday November 11, 2024 16:46
The party’s Director of Policy and Strategy, Dr Patrick Molutsi, assured the media and Batswana that the UDC will run a liberal government and deliver what they promised in their manifesto. Dr Molutsi said as the UDC policy and strategy team appreciated the work done by the media as they afforded them coverage during the run up to the elections. “People were always glued to media platforms to hear what we had to say. We wish that this culture continues going forward. From where we come from, we advocate for deliberative democracy. “We want people to converse continuously so we get to hear different points of view. It strengthens ideas. We will try our best and also speak out where we falter,” he said. He said to encourage open dialogue, they would put in place the long-awaited Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Dr Molutsi also shared that their manifesto was a result of extensive consultation with different stakeholders including unions, organisations and even individuals. “We are very proud that our manifesto is anchored on the views of the citizens of this country. And therefore, excited as we are, we are content that the views that ultimately went into the manifesto were generated by people,” he said. He said they are the only party that was able in its manifesto to state very clearly that civil society is a critical player in the delivery of government programmes. He said they are going to keep that.
He said they were also the only party to state that retired peoples associations and organisations still have a very important role to play. Dr Molutsi also thanked the voters for delivering 36 of the 61 seats in Parliament. “We are fully aware that we were overwhelmingly voted. But we are also fully aware that in terms of popular vote, we are a minority government by getting 37% of the votes while more than 50% went to the other parties. We did not expect that everyone will vote for UDC. We appreciate and we will reach out to every Motswana to give ideas and thoughts in different issues. Some of our people are well travelled and well researched. We should not make a mistake of not listening or we will fall into the trap of past leaders,” he said. He said although they are grateful for the majority seats, they would not abuse it in Parliament because they know there are others in parliament who have been equally voted by different voters in the country. “We will give our opponents the respect they deserve with the understanding that they would do the same to our government,” he said. Molutsi said they understood well that their government has to do better also considering that if they do not do better they could easily lose power in 2029. He however said they were confident as they had selected a team they know would do their best. He also reiterated President, Advocate Duma’s words that they were not going to spend time bashing the BDP.
He said bashing and spending time talking about the BDP would not improve the lives of Batswana. “We are not here to spend time in history. But we are not going to spend an awful amount of time talking about the BDP. I am not saying where we find wrong we will ignore it. But I am saying we had an opportunity to criticise BDP and we did. And we are here. We were insulted, attacked, our president attacked. But if you look at our campaign material, we did not talk back. We knew perfectly that what was at stake was the bread and butter issues of Batswana hence we focused on the economy, issues of poverty and inequality, unemployment, our health and deteriorating infrastructure,” he said. Dr Molutsi said their campaigners were told that they should focus on issues that affect the lives of Batswana and not personal attacks. He also thanked all political parties and stated that they were going to reform the All Parties Conference to ensure that it doesn’t only meet regularly, but it has code of conduct and standards agreed upon to resolve that they avoid wasting time talking about wrong things. “Politicians have lost stature across the world because they tend to spend time on wrong thing, not what people need. We are going to improve it in such a manner that all parties represented in parliament and those outside have a platform to talk and advise each other. “This will help us compete fairly. We will also advise government about issues such as election dates and proportional representation which need to be fixed,” he said.
On the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Dr Molutsi said they did not feel treated fairly by the Commission. “We didn’t feel totally confident that they were treating us as they should, when you talk about democracy and elections. They were very rigid and moved away from usual practices. For example, the soft voters roll issue caused unnecessary headaches and difficulties until someone reasonable leaked it. We thank them for running elections, but we were also prepared to help them because we were not happy with what happened in 2019 where I was even one of the petitioners,” he said.
He further thanked their observer team, Madibela Tlhopho. He said while some believed they were trouble makers, the group never caused any trouble. “You saw during advanced voting which was a mess but they did not fight anyone. They were disciplined and well guided. It was never intended that they cause anything out of the law or out of the context of the elections,” he said. Dr Molutsi reminded the nation that their primary pillar of the UDC manifesto is that the economy has the capacity to create jobs. He said they would use a developmental state approach where they create mega economic enterprises which create jobs and produces goods and services therefore diversify the economy.