’Marafaele Mohloboli
ALL Basotho Convention (ABC) leader, Nkabu Kabi, has dared Prime Minister Sam Matekane to open parliament and see if he still commands the majority he needs to remain in power.
Addressing party supporters at Malimong in Berea district on Sunday, Mr Kabi said the contentious topic of whether the opposition or government had more legislators in the national assembly, should not be discussed on social media and radios but tested in the legislature.
This, he added, would put the matter to rest once and for all, and decide the future of Lesotho.
“The time has come, Samuel Ntsokoane Matekane, the one called the eastern Mantšonyane star, for you to open parliament so that we may talk with you. There is a lot of noise on social media platforms and on the radios about numbers and parliament,” Mr Kabi thundered.
“The issue of determining whether there are numbers or not, is not to be discussed on such platforms but in parliament. So, open the parliament so that we can speak Sesotho in there. Unlock the parliament doors so that we can enter and battle it out.”
Speculation has gone into overdrive that some disgruntled legislators of Mr Matekane’s Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) and their opposition colleagues, are trying to cobble-up enough numbers to dislodge premier Matekane.
Their grievance, the speculation goes on, is that Mr Matekane’s government has failed to deliver on its promises of job-creation and growing Lesotho’s economy, let alone uphold its meritocracy mantra of appointing people to public service positions based on merit and not nepotism.
Just last week, RFP Member of Parliament (MP) for the Abia constituency, Thuso Makhalanyane, alleged that under Mr Matekane’s government, the recruitment of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) Director-General Knorx Molelle, Auditor-General ‘Mathabo Makenete, Public Service Commission Chairperson Mpeo Mahase-Moiloa, and Lesotho Housing and Development Corporation (LHDC) Director ‘Malesekele Matekane, among others, had not been done fairly as they were either siblings, friends or relatives of either Mr Matekane himself or members of his cabinet.
Speaking on the upcoming local government elections, Mr Kabi said the electorate should “stand up and be counted” by giving their votes to ABC candidates so that the party returns to power.
Mr Kabi also spoke about Malimong constituency’s growing of marijuana.
“Dagga was declared illegal in Lesotho for decades, until the whites said it was medicinal and good to use as was happening in other countries of the world,” Mr Kabi said.
“Dagga is good for medicinal purposes and is a remedy for cancer. Its extracts are used, and the whites are smoking it freely on the streets. It had to take whites to declare dagga as a good medicinal plant, because we are still in the slavery era. You shouldn’t be surprised if you are soon to see the same happening in our country.
“During our childhood, we’d see our parents boiling some dagga seeds for medicine, but we had to wait for the whites to tell us that and sadly to date, cancer is still claiming lives. It is still a silent killer and yet we have dagga and are just overlooking it while the whites benefit by making medicines and keep it their secret how they use it to cure cancer.”
Moving from marijuana to the textile industry, Mr Kabi said the ABC government had promised that in 2023, it would build a factory in Berea district.
This, he added, could not happen as the party was no longer in power after ceding government to an RFP-led coalition administration last year.
“The construction of factories will ensure job-creation. We have built factories in Butha-Buthe, but they are not being used. Instead of people being hired, they are retrenched as the textile industry downsizes,” Mr Kabi said.
ABC founder and former prime minister Thomas Thabane was also present at Sunday’s rally. Dr Thabane , who has been
accompanying Mr Kabi on his local government elections campaign, said the ABC was, by far, the best party in Lesotho and remained the strongest even after losing power in last year’s general election.
In the October 2022 elections, the ABC emerged with just eight parliamentary seats—a far cry from its 2017 performance in which the party obtained 51 seats to propel it to power as a senior partner in a coalition government.
According to the erstwhile premier who was unceremoniously unseated in May 2020, leading to his former finance minister Moeketsi Majoro becoming prime minister and leading a coalition government with the now main opposition Democratic Congress (DC), members had an obligation to reclaim the ABC’s former glory.
“We lost the national elections last year and this doesn’t mean we need to lose confidence in the local government elections by thinking we might lose again. The ABC is still alive, and you should not allow the enemy to infiltrate you. Unite and work on the oneness of this party. We are strong when we are together, and we shouldn’t allow anyone to come between us,” Dr Thabane said.
Dr Thabane said he had always wondered where the ABC went wrong to have lost the elections when it was still so strong.
“The ABC isn’t just a party that can be picked on the streets. It is a party formed from the hearts of men and women who have their people’s and country’s development at heart, and this is also something that just can’t be picked from
the street. I have never seen a party like this one,” Dr Thabane said.
He further highlighted that the ABC had made history with its following comprising mainly the youth, saying this was demonstration of the true wishes of the people on the direction Lesotho’s development should take.
“Go back to your respective constituencies and reclaim and restore the ABC’s glitter. Take the party back to its splendour where, when represented in events like the
African Union (AU), people did not want to miss Lesotho’s speech by its representative and not what’s happening now. It is the fault of those who came before you, us, that we have declined in that aspect,” Dr Thabane said.
