NATIONAL University of Lesotho Vice Chancellor, Nqosa Mahao, was recently nominated for a senior post in the All Basotho Convention (ABC) in the run up to the party’s elective conference scheduled for February 2019. A fierce critic of former Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s Democratic Congress and former Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing’s Lesotho Congress of Democracy, Professor Mahao is known for never holding back his opinion. In this first instalment of the interview, Lesotho Times’ Senior Reporter Pascalinah Kabi (PK) talks to Prof Mahao (Prof Mahao) on his decision to join active politics. The second and last installment will be published in the next edition of the Lesotho Times.
PK: The Koro-Koro Constituency has nominated you to contest for the ABC deputy leader position. It is clear that you are now a politician under the ABC banner, what is going to happen with your Vice-Chancellor position at the National University of Lesotho?
Prof Mahao: The university does not belong to me, does it? The owners of the university will determine what has to happen. I am supposed to speak to the chairperson of the board of the university council today (Wednesday) and that conversation is going to indicate what course of action has to be taken in the weeks and months ahead. That is all I can say.
By the way, I have been physically in this office before then as Pro Vice Chancellor and when I felt that it was necessary to change course, I changed course in 2003. So, to me, it is not something new. I don’t always enjoy overstaying in office. It is a serious African virus of wanting to cling to office for too long. I still have a good one year to serve. My contract ought to have ended in November 2019 but these developments necessitate that my stay here is reviewed.
PK: What is your manifesto for the ABC deputy leader position election campaign?
Prof Mahao: First thing, the context in which the ABC secured the most votes in the immediate past elections was one of hope because as a country we had just gone through what is possibly the worst experience since the democratic space anchored around the 1993 constitution was opened up. No one is unaware of what prevailed in the country between 2015 and 2017, a very dramatic experience in the life of a nation. From the deterioration in the rule of law, the collapse in the regard for the wellbeing and integrity of human life, the looting that happened to the fiscus, the general arrogance of the powers that be and of course an economy that had set on a tailspin.
These were the issues that were at the back of the minds of our compatriots when they went to the polls and the expectation was that once we had elected a new leadership into office, the trajectory was going to be in an opposite direction. Draw the line on all of these things and open a new page to a promising future. Regrettably, initially it looked like there was a positive movement but in less than a year a degree of disillusionment and disgruntlement in the nation is palpable. And therefore, what that means is that it is imperative to inject a new sense of hope, a sense of hope that says let us go back and rediscover why the people voted for us.
The prevailing gap between those who are in power and the sentiments of the people on the ground has to be bridged and it is only in that way that we can address what seems to be a downward slide politically, economically, morally and socially. Now, where does the problem lie? My analysis is this, a political organisation is as good as its national executive, its core leadership. When you see an organisation that is rudderless, for example; as this university was a few years ago, it says something about the leadership and it is my sense that colleagues in the leadership of the ABC lost their focus on why they had been elected into leadership.
This is because a government draws its mandate from a party, not the other way around. Those who think that the party is a tail of a government are wrong, it has to be the other way around. I am saying that the party is the center of the government, it draws its mandate from the electorate and ought to supervise all strategic issues that are taken in government. Presently, it is our hunch that the NEC of the ABC is either not doing that or it has no capacity to do so. If you compared the way the ABC functioned when it is in government with, for example, the other partners Alliance of Democrats and Basotho National Party, the actions of those parties are better coordinated within and outside government than what happens within the ABC.
So, if you want to deal with the issue of how to reconnect the party with the electorate and how to ensure that the party supervises what happens in government, the main source of the ABC troubles is with the NEC of the ABC, that is where you have to redress the problem. That is my analysis of the situation, that is where I believe the first correction has to be made.
A political party that leads government has to have policies that are implemented by the government. One of the things that would have to happen is to have a policy conference where you develop a policy roadmap, how are you are going to deal with unemployment that is ravaging our youth? How are you doing to deal with the resources? How do you help industrialise the country? You do not hear these issues being debated, do you?
When this new government came in, there was a little bit talk of a job submit and for goodness sake unemployment has gone worse but nobody talks about a job submit anymore. So, it means that we are not confronting the challenges that our people endure on a daily basis. Those are some of the things that have to be done. For a party that is as big as the ABC is in this government, do you have international relations with other organisations beyond Lesotho? It does not look like the ABC does and you know why a small little party such as the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) always outmaneuvers us in government. It is because it has friends elsewhere and those are the buttons it presses. You would have seen this obnoxious clause 10, it was not conceptualised locally and it came with backing from elsewhere because that party is able to press the buttons elsewhere.
When I made my speech on Saturday, I hinted that episode when the President of Namibia simply ordered the Lesotho Prime Minister to revoke the prorogation of the parliament. We were just told it does not matter whether it is in the constitution, go and withdraw it. Somebody had actually pressed those buttons to work in his favour. So, we have to address that, we also have to address the issue of our response to the concerns of the membership of the party.
It is very interesting that you tune on a radio the most critical people about government are members of the ABC and it is good that you have a support base that is aware and able to vent their frustrations but you must have institutions within the party that are able to respond to those concerns. It does not look like with the present NEC we have that capacity. The four parties said they are going to enforce the decisions of SADC but we now know that there are strenuous efforts to divert focus away from their enforcement. Decisions are made in government and the party is disabled to say but we committed ourselves.
All of those things–whether it is the economic situation, it is the lack of service delivery, lack of responding to those human rights issues–they are creating a lot of disenchantment against the party and you can actually see that in the public meetings that are held through the country. Fewer people get excited to participate so one is hoping that come February we would have a reenergised the NEC that will go back to the basics and be able to impose its authority on how government works. If we do not do that, I dare say we must bid farewell to winning elections if we will get to 2022.
I do not think that the parties in opposition have any strong support any more, they are a damaged good because of their track record when they were in office but they may come back to power by default simply because the electorate base of the four parties in government is so disgruntled that it just stays away from the polls. Now for goodness sake, those like me who are living with the scars of the two years regime of 2015-17 do not want to witness the nightmare repeat itself because that is what those guys will do when they come back. That is what impelled me to make this difficult choice to say do you want to watch from the sidelines and mourn the impending doom or do you walk in there and say I am going to be part of the solution and I made the latter choice.
PK: You have always been vocal and have never been one to shy away from voicing out your opinion despite the subsequent repercussions. How are you hoping to assist Prime Minister Thomas Thabane and the party to implement the manifesto without stepping on other people’s toes and being thrown out in the cold?
Prof Mahao: I am not a prophet so I cannot predict the future but the leader is part of the collective, he is not an institution outside the collective and I think if his decisions are made in council, by which I mean within the collective, there should not be problem about interpersonal relations within the movement. I simply think that he is not probably supported within the movement and that is what needs to be cured and so I don’t see him as the problem. I think there has been a lot of opportunism that has been happening in the ranks of the leadership of the party.
For example, when Tlali Khasu was going to be thrown out, I sent a message through someone that this is not the time to throw Khasu out because at the time that was when the Democratic Congress, as the dominant party in that atrocious government was going through the painful pranks of split and I thought throwing him out was likely to divert the attention away from us trying to induce the AD to be born out of the DC.
I tried to send my advice and later I got a phone call that a decision had been made to execute the decision notwithstanding the advice. I think people were looking for their own opportunities saying “if Khasu goes I stand in the poll position to get into the shoes”. I find that regrettable indeed. Strictly speaking, my views are that legally and politically the leader is part of the collective, he is the leader of the collective and his decisions must be advised by a properly, politically and intellectually resourced collective which I suspect does not exist now and hence this challenge around the movement.
PK: You have been on the receiving end of the accusations by the opposition for some time now that you are failing to run the university because of your political involvement. Wouldn’t you say you have vindicated the opposition now that you are running for a political office?
Prof Mahao: Shame on them. If you look at the constitution of Lesotho, it guarantees every citizen to participate in government. It does not say when you are at the university, you are barred from exercising your right. By the way, where do you expect to find the most conscious citizens in any country if not in the oasis of knowledge? The people who should be able to analyse, appreciate, foresee issues, where do you expect to find them, in academia for goodness sake.
I have been a thorn to all the governments we have had from my student days, the BNP government, the military government of General Metsing Lekhanya, the subsequent Basotho Congress Party governments because I have urged in my genes this capacity to be very independent minded. It showed itself when I was just a toddler.
I am often tempted to ask that people should go to the National Security Service to get a file about me, it must be one of the biggest files because they have been collecting it for more than 40 years. I know they are collecting information about me even now but it does not make me have sleepless nights. I am very passionate about rights; wellbeing of people and I do not think I have to be restrained in experiencing my views about those things and for goodness’ sake that is guaranteed by the constitution. It is not that I am seditious.
