Home NewsLocal News “Lesotho will be saved if I become prime minister” – Phamotse

“Lesotho will be saved if I become prime minister” – Phamotse

by Lesotho Times
0 comment 10.4K views

Mohloai Mpesi

FORMER ruling Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) legislator for the Matlakeng constituency, Mahali Phamotse, was on Tuesday this week unveiled as leader of a new political party, United African Transformation (UAT), putting to rest her protracted battles with her previous party’s leadership.

Dr Phamotse’s departure from the RFP, happened after more than a year of butting heads with RFP leader Sam Matekane and his national executive committee.  Their many confrontations included her litigation to force the party to allow her to contest in the 2022 general elections under its banner and voting against the government in parliament in August this year. All this resulted in her suspension and expulsion from the RFP.

Castigated by her critics as a political “philanderer”, who before joining RFP at its March 2022 formation, had been a member of the Basotho Congress Party (BCP), Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), Democratic Congress (DC), and the Alliance of Democrats (AD), her involvement in the formation of the new UAT did not surprise many. For the first time ever, Dr Phamotse will be in parliament not as a member or official of a party, but at the helm of her own party.

The Lesotho Times’ (LT) Political Reporter, Mohloai Mpesi, thus caught up with her this week to discuss how she plans to navigate the latest chapter in her colourful political career…

Excerpts from the interview:

LT: What leadership skills do you possess and what impact do you hope to make with the UAT on Lesotho’s political landscape?

Phamotse: I have a passion for developing young people. I am able to work with the youth because I have been a high school teacher. I also taught at the Lesotho College of Education (LCE) and the National University of Lesotho (NUL), and they (young people) were always my friends.

I understand young people and love to work with them, even in the sports arena. I ended up joining politics because I taught a lot of them and was distraught at seeing them not having opportunities. Despite their acquired academic qualifications, most have not been able to secure jobs.

It is the reason why I cannot rest until everyone is well off. I like to see everyone earning a living.

I am not the kind of person who does not fulfill their promises. Whenever I fail to deliver, I go back to the community and report to them on time…. Many politicians lack such qualities, they just lie to the public and never care to account.

I am an accountable politician. That is my skill that I nurture every day because I don’t want it to end. I have never lied to people, and I will never do that.

My other leadership quality is that I always like to see people prosper. I like to share everything that I have with the people and if I become prime minister one day, it means the whole country will be saved. We thought that those who have money (like Matekane) would come to the country’s rescue, only to realise that they came into government  to take more from its coffers.

They had claimed they had their own money with which to help this country, especially in improving its infrastructure. But obviously that was not to be. They made a lot of promises they are not fulfilling. They lied they would use their machines to repair roads. That is not happening. The nation was fed lies.

LT: Simple question, how do you feel now that you have left the RFP where you appeared to have fought some of your hardest political battles yet?

Phamotse: I have mixed feelings. I feel both happy and sad when I reflect on my political journey with the RFP. I always try to reflect on things before I take a decision. I reflect and act gradually basing myself on the happenings of the past and predicting the future. That is my ethic.

So, when I take a decision, it is based on authentic considerations. But I don’t dwell much on any painful or hateful experiences…But I go as far back as when I was a child. I review my ambitions and the things I set out to achieve from an early age. I introspect on how I failed to implement or achieve some of the things I badly wanted. I then plan on how best to achieve them and take informed decisions. I had wanted the RFP to make a difference to the lives of Basotho.  Sadly, that is not going to happen. I have therefore moved to my new political platform to fight for Basotho.

Right now, a dominant feeling I have is happiness, I am just like, ‘this is me despite all that happened’… When you reflect, you even remember people that are important to you, people you worked with, had problems with, and sometimes you were always at odds with. It gives me a feeling of happiness when I look back and see the journey I’ve walked and now where I am. Well, it’s not the best place to be but it’s a place that I am in and it’s a result of my historical journey through politics, family, friends, haters, and everything.

It may not be the best place, you are never at the best place, you are always at a place that you are going to make the best out of. There is no best place, there is no bad place.

LT: What do you make of Lesotho’s political system which seems to spawn never ending squabbles among political elites?

Phamotse: There is a theoretical system and practical system…. And the model that we are using as a country is not a bad model. It is a model that we can use well as politicians to benefit the country. It is good on the paper, but then I have a problem when it comes to practice. There are politicians who get into the system only to serve their own interests. The most painful thing is politicians who lie to the nation. They don’t implement things they promise to the nation.

That is where my problem is. You tell me that you are going to implement certain things, I am expecting you to do that and within the time frame you specified. If you fail, you must come back to notify me that you are experiencing problems.

I am a principled politician. I hate lies.

Our politicians don’t care to deliver on their promises, and it is none of their business if the things they promised fail to take off. And the arrogance of our politicians is painful. I am a politician but when you arrive in my constituency people will tell you about my work. I don’t boast about it myself, but my work speaks on my behalf.

They (my constituents) will tell you that I deliver on my promises, but when I come across hurdles, I go back and tell them that I am experiencing problems instead of being arrogant and dropping their calls or even staying here in Maseru instead of going home to face them.

L.T: You sound like you are referring to your former party boss, Mr Matekane.

Phamotse: We have indeed seen rich people who joined politics under the pretext that they are here to work for the nation.  The fact remains that is not happening. They are not working for the nation.  They are in it for themselves….? I came into politics because I wanted to serve the nation. I want to see Basotho prospering. When I eat, they should also eat. When they don’t have food, it means I also don’t have food.

LT: You were a founding member of the AD. Why did you leave it to join the RFP?  Did you have good intentions of working with the RFP or you just wanted to use the party for your ends?

Phamotse: I made myself clear when I left AD, that I don’t just walk out of a party without telling its members that I am leaving and without sound reasons. I even lobbied some of them to join the RFP because I thought the new party would genuinely transform the nation.

I trusted Ntate Matekane because I saw the projects that he implemented when he was a businessman, even though he only achieved his success and fortune through lucrative government tenders. There were many other people who received tenders from the government yet they did not care to give back to the nation like he did…Compared to others, he used some of his resources to give back to his native Mantṧonyane community. That impressed me a lot.

So, I imagined that when he becomes a prime minister, he would use the national budget and funding from development partners well to transform the whole nation and improve the lives of Basotho. I thought he would not be corrupt since he is already rich. That is what I had in mind. Unfortunately, the outcome has proved otherwise and he has been a huge disappointment.

LT: What was the root cause of your squabbles within the RFP?

Phamotse: (Chuckling) My political route is the same. In the RFP it was only a continuation of the journey of doing what I believe in… I work hard day and night to fulfill a dream or ambition I believe in.

So, that makes many people jealous so much that I end up experiencing a push back when I am only trying to advance my beliefs. So, it was not a new thing in the RFP. I saw them doing things I don’t believe in and I made my views clear that I disagreed with those things. They did not like my honesty. They started victimising me.

I started being highly active in politics when I joined the DC, I found the same culture in that party.  But at least the DC leaders didn’t have malice.

I also rose up the political ladder very quickly.

Mr Pakalitha Mosisili appointed me to be a minister of education. I had no experience and I hadn’t expected it. I did my best in that job.

I then realised that so many people were afraid of him (Mosisili). But I wasn’t. So many people were afraid of Ntate Mosisili. They would call him ntate moetapele, ntate moetapele. I observed that some people were scared to tell him the truth. But I always spoke truth to power. I was not afraid.  A lot of people disliked me for that. Fortunately, Ntate Mosisili liked me for my honest and because I also worked hard.  He liked people who worked hard.

Ntate Mosisili liked me a lot because when he was wrong, I would tell him. He liked the fact that I was able to take decisions when I believed that something is correct.

So, I left DC because some people close to him, like Ntate Matekane were giving him bad advice. I became aware of it when it happened to me. Oh yes, I faced a lot of things. People do not like it when one is working hard, it’s like they get scared. I was not fired by Ntate Mosisili. When he summoned me to his office one day to relieve me of my duties, I knew that it was not his decision, it was Ntate Mothetjoa Metsing ‘s decision. He was his deputy-prime minister at that time.

I liked Ntate Mosisili.  I always rooted for him because he was fair. He was my role model in politics, he knew administration and had leadership skills, and was able to make decisions. It was difficult for him to expel me. He was principled. But then he had people influencing him badly.

I came to the AD under the leadership of Mr Monyane Moleleki. He also knows leadership but similarly, he had ‘influencers’ who directed him in the wrong direction. They even alleged that I wanted to topple him, and things got very bad on my side. But I stood and fought my battles.

Then came Ntate Matekane. I did not run away from AD because things were difficult for me. I am guided by principle. I came to the RFP because I thought Ntate Matekane was a genuine leader who would make a difference. When I noticed that he was also in the wrong direction, I thought I should tell him the truth as I had done with all these other leaders, prior. Hell then broke loose because he is impervious to criticism. That is the source of the squabbles because some leaders don’t take alternative viewpoints.

LT:  So how would you describe Mr Matekane as a leader?

Phamotse: Chaos. He is chaotic. There are no leadership skills at all. He does not have a single quality of a leader…

He does not know how to lead. Everything that is happening in the party and government, is down to his bad leadership…

He is incompetent.  Electing him to lead this country was a huge mistake… Everything is haphazard with him.  Everyone is doing whatever they want at any time they want.

He is not following the laws of this country on many issues… He does not go by the book. Tenders are not advertised. His ministers are involved in corruption… Everyone is dipping their hands in the pot…..

Everyone is telling him what to do. This government is like a dancing room where Makhadzi is the performer, everyone is dancing their own style. It’s like a festival or music show and every dance is good.  Drunkards or sober people are all dancing.

LT: People say he (Matekane) did not want to join politics but was influenced by other people to enter the political fray?

Phamotse: I had similar thoughts in the beginning but when I started observing things he was doing as a person, I realised this was not the case. He came into politics voluntarily to save his own interests. He had bad intentions. He had his own business battles that he wanted to fight, with political power and authority.

Even if it were true that some people influenced him, he still had his own agendas…

Some of the bad things he is doing are things that he planned for a long time.

LT: What is therefore your vision for this country?

Phamotse: My vision for this country is that the economy of this country should benefit every Mosotho. I also want decentralisation of power to give local government the autonomy to make decisions for the grassroots. That is the only solution for Basotho to get efficient services. Sadly, the ministers are centralising tenders for themselves and their comrades. Power must be returned to the people through their local representatives. I have a lot of good ideas and plans and I can tell you I will save Lesotho from the precipice if I become prime minister one day.

 

You may also like

Leave a Comment

About Us

Lesotho’s widely read newspaper, published every Thursday and distributed throughout the country and in some parts of South Africa. Contact us today: News: editor@lestimes.co.ls 

Advertising: marketing@lestimes.co.ls 

Telephone: +266 2231 5356

Recent Articles