Secretary General of Lesotho progressive Congress, Mr Bokang Ramatšella
’Marafaele Mohloboli
THE seven parties in the governing coalition are formulating a pact to join forces in the 3 June 2017 snap elections after three of them inked an agreement last week.
This is according to Lesotho People’s Congress (LPC) Secretary-General Bokang Ramatšella who told the Lesotho Times that a framework for the inclusion of the other parties in the pact to field one candidate for each constituency was still being worked out.
Parties in the governing coalition include the Democratic Congress (DC), Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), LPC, Popular Front for Democracy (PFD), Basotho Congress Party (BCP), National Independent Party (NIP) and the Marematlou Freedom Party (MFP).
The coalition formed government on 4 March 2015 after the 28 February 2015 elections resulted in a hung parliament, with DC leader Pakalitha Mosisili taking the premiership.
The DC had won 47 of the 120 parliamentary seats on offer, while the LCD, PFD, BCP, LPC, MFP and NIP took 12, two, one, one, one and one, respectively.
However, the coalition government’s five-year tenure was cut short on 1 March 2017 when a four-party opposition alliance successfully sponsored a parliamentary no-confidence vote.
King Letsie III acceded to Dr Mosisili’s advice to dissolve parliament on 6 March 2017 and set 3 June 2017 as the date for the snap elections.
Last week, the DC, LCD and PFD announced a pact to field one candidate for each of the country’s 80 constituencies citing a need to avoid vote splitting.
Under the pact, the DC will contest in 54 constituencies while the LCD was allocated 25. The PFD will field a single candidate in its Qalo stronghold in Butha-Buthe.
The four parties had seemingly not been accommodated in the pact, but Mr Ramatšella said a framework was in the works to include them.
“We are still working on our agreement as the seven parties,” he said.
“Initially, we had expected to seal the agreement by last week. But due to other commitments, we still have not finalised it but hopefully it will be ready before the end of this week.”
Mr Ramatšella said contrary to the claims by the government’s critics that the other four parties had been discarded, they would contest the elections as one entity.
“What I can safely say is that we are still a united front. We even intend to contest in the elections using the same manifesto.
“By delaying the agreement, we want to give false hope to our political opponents that we are fragmented when in actual fact we are one,” he said, adding that they were also jointly working on proportional representation (PR) lists so they benefit all the parties.
NIP leader, Kimetso Mathaba, told this paper the seven parties agreed to give the DC and LCD a chance to forge an alliance since they had the most votes in the 2012 elections.
During the 26 May 2012 poll, the LCD won 12 constituencies and went on to acquire a further 14 PR seats, bringing its total number in the National Assembly to 26, while the DC won 41 constituencies and seven PR seats.
“We have not been excluded because the 2012 elections were the basis that was used,” he said.
“It would be selfish of us to deny them the chance to do it again as we failed to garner the requisite votes in our respective constituencies.”
Mr Mathaba added that the PFD joined the pact because it won a constituency in the 2015 elections.
BCP leader, Advocate Thulo Mahlakeng, echoed the sentiment saying the three parties were within their rights to ink an agreement. He, however, expressed a disinclination to join the pact.
“What the LCD, DC and PFD have done is actually within their constitutional rights of freedom of association,” he said.
“As the BCP, we wouldn’t want to contest in the elections tied to some alliance because we want to protect our identity beyond these snap elections.”
Advocate Mahlakeng said even after the elections they will still be able to make their own decisions as they did after sitting on the cross bench after the 2015 election until they decided to join the Dr Mosisili-led coalition government.
