SELLO MOTSETA
Associated Press
GABORONE, Botswana (AP) — Hundreds of opposition supporters broke into ululations on Friday when a court in Botswana dismissed the president’s effort to change the process of selecting the vice president.
Opposition parties welcomed the court’s decision to keep the vote for vice president by secret ballot, rather than by a public show of hands, calling it a victory for democracy.
Last week President Ian Khama’s lawyers asked the attorney general to request the courts to change parliament’s voting procedures, a move opposition parties said would undermine parliament.
In a rare show of unity, leaders of Botswana’s two main opposition parties addressed the crowds gathered outside the high court in the capital Gaborone.
“She failed to defend the independence of parliament,” said Duma Boko, of the Umbrella for Democratic Change, saying that attorney general Athalia Molokomme was unfit for office.
In Botswana, elected members of parliament select the vice president, speaker and deputy speaker.
The speaker of parliament, Margaret Nasha, who would have enacted the procedure in cabinet, welcomed the decision. Nasha said the president may have pursued the change to ensure his preferred candidate would have been voted in.
“There is fear that maybe, just maybe, the preferred candidates for speakership and vice president may not get the required votes,” said Nasha. “And the idea is to penalize and or intimidate those that do not toe the line by literally whipping them into submission.”
Khama and his ruling Botswana Democratic Party were re-elected in the Oct. 15 polls, a vote that also gave the opposition the highest number of seats it has ever won.
Khama’s party won 37 seats while the Umbrella for Democratic Change won 17 seats and the Botswana Congress Party secured three seats.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
