Shashe

While I agree with virtually all the measures that government has taken to fight corona virus, there is one particular measure that I think may well end up being counter productive. Banning sale of alcohol will make alcoholics to be less resistant to disease - something that is likely to cause even those that might survive, to perish. I think the Indian approach is the best; whip the hell out of those drunkards who drink in public, especially outside bottle stores, BUT please keep the bottle stores open for protection of alcoholics who may purchase booze to either drink at their homes or in their cars away from public spaces.

Exit polls are banned (illegal) in our country, and yet the proponents of electronic voting machine (EVM) adoption, among whom we count the republic's president, argue that the EVM would speed up vote processing during the general elections. It is indisputable that every voter would like to have the election results announced as soon as possible after the elections. It is also indisputable that every voter (other than the politicians) would like the election results to accurately reflect how the voters voted, that is which candidates won, and where. So a balance has to be struck between election processing speed and integrity of an election. Unfortunately politicians exploit the voter's ignorance and desire for speed to the complete exclusion of the desire for integrity of an election, because integrity is counter to the vested interests of politicians - to steal the election results from the actual victors. So, while EVMs and exit polls are both scientific methods of attaining...

I am going to contribute what little I can afford towards the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) election petitions bill, because I wanted them to win and because I do not believe that they lost. But I am not oblivious to the possibility that the UDC may have actually lost the election. We need to critically look at the viability or lack thereof, of the UDC. The founding principle of the UDC is a noble concept. The UDC was built primarily to arrest splitting of votes, whereby two political parties that share the desire to unseat the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) compete for votes in any given area. A decision was made to create the UDC, and invite opposition political parties to become the UDC's affiliate/member parties. The voting population was then split by constituencies and the constituencies were shared among the affiliate/member parties of the UDC. It was assumed that if all such parties went for elections under one "umbrella" name, UDC, then ALL voters who w...

You see, when the President came back from the WEF meeting at Davos, he expressed frustration and anger at opposition political parties for launching petitions against the 2019 general elections. He fumed that the people who were disputing election results were the very same people who had opposed, and caused cancellation of, the introduction of electronic voting machines (EVMs). To me it was incomprehensible that the President could start associating the petitions with the EVMs when the courts of law had only just started hearing the petition cases; when no one had yet had a chance to brief him by unpacking the allegations contained in the petitions. I just couldn't get it. Well, this weekend's newspaper, Mmegi  "The Reporter" has enlightened me somewhat, about what could be going on in the President's mind. The paper carries a story headlined "Electronic voter registration mooted". Evidently, the  Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) this past we...