Youth, please register to vote and Spoil the ballot!

This is a call to the youth of Botswana to engage in the only political protest for which NO police permission is required. The youth are being called upon to register in droves for the forthcoming General Election, with the sole intention of casting a SPOILT vote so as to register their discontent with the prevailing economic and political conditions in the country.

How does one cast a spoilt vote? To cast a spoilt vote, a voter simply marks ALL the candidates presented on the ballot paper. The spoilt ballot will not be counted as belonging to ANY of the candidates. However, it will be counted as a valid vote - a spoilt vote. At the end of the counting of all ballots, the spoilt ballots will also be summed up and presented as a percentage of the TOTAL votes cast in the election. Imagine the fear it will strike into the hearts of whichever political party wins the election, if the spoilt vote accounts to, say 51% of the total vote. The youth will have sent a strong message to the rulers that they want change, that they want to see accountability in the way the economy is managed, that they are perfectly capable of USING THEIR VOTE TO TAKE OVER GOVERNMENT!

Why a spoilt vote? The Botswana landscape is littered with relics to economic mismanagement: The billions of Pula wasted in the Palapye glass factory project; the tens of millions of Pula wasted in the Serowe stadium project; the billions of Pula wasted in the Morupule B power station project; the millions of Pula in cost over-runs to build the Sir Seretse Khama Airport upgrade; the millions wasted in Francistown stadium; the list goes on and on. These are monies that could have been used to CREATE JOBS for youth! But the youth are helpless because the people who have been repeatedly voted into Parliament have no interest in changing the status quo. All they care about is their own "stomachs". They can't even hold the Executive to account, for fear lest the Executive decides to call a snap general election in which the Parliamentarians concerned will be swept aside by  rigged  party primary elections.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that a Parliamentarian (or elected Councillor), once elected, can dump his pre-election manifesto,his political party, his promises to the electorate; he can renounce everything including his name, AND STILL REMAIN THE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ELECTED HIM, WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT, AND THEY WILL CONTINUE TO PAY HIM/HER FOR THE NEXT FIVE LONG YEARS.

A spoilt ballot is perfectly legal. It is acknowleged as an effective form of vote to force the powers that be to take voters' concerns seriously. For a highly enlightenned advocacy for a spoilt ballot, I refer the reader to the column 'Opposite Poles' by Sameosi Mokgethiwa in the 'Weekend Post' newspaper of 18-24 January 2014. Sensitive readers are advised to substitute the words "Botswana Youth" for "BDP" in the said article, to avoid harm from reading putrid BDP propaganda.