Until donkeys grow horns

crutator has news for all those who think 2012 will give this country a new government.

The Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) will rule this country until donkeys grow horns because the opposition in this country is hopelessly disorganised and pathetic.

Yes, I said: the LCD might have been badly wounded by infighting between power hungry and misdirected factions but that doesn’t mean it will be leaving office anytime soon.

You only need to look at the calibre of the opposition in this country to realise that we are going to be stuck with the Lesotho Congress for Confusion no matter how much people in the urban areas kick and scream.

True, the LCD has squandered its goodwill by letting thieves plunder this country with impunity.

It is also true that this government has, of late, developed a penchant for rewarding crooks.

Masupha Sole was rehired despite being a wretched crook who developed rotund cheeks through ‘chowing” bribes.

Yes, tenders are being rigged left, right and centre.

True, the few connected people in this country are getting richer while the majority wallows in poverty.

Yet even those obvious shortcomings and sins will not be enough to get the LCD out of power.

The reason for this sad reality is that the opposition parties in this country are full of inept blabbermouths who have neither the strategy nor the stamina to win a national election.

They are too divided and too many to put up a strong challenge against the ruling party. Put bluntly, there are no real opposition parties in this country.

Instead, what we have are tiny groups of people who are hungry for change but cannot change things because they made the mistake of putting imbeciles in key positions.

Their so-called leaders have surrounded themselves with political novices some of whom can’t even spell their names under pressure.

Because they lack political strategy and sometimes commonsense they would rather spend most of their time hurling profanities at the government instead of finding ways to win hearts and minds.

They forget that gone are days when you used to get votes for merely being a chatterbox.

o who do we have challenging the limping LCD?

Well, there is the overrated but ridiculously shallow All Basotho Convention (ABC) which is run by an old man who spent his life in every government this country has had since independence, including dubious ones.

In his corner is a chairman whom Scrutator suspects also moonlights as his bodyguard.  Then you have a bunch of nonentities who only stumbled into key positions because they have mastered the art of bootlicking the leader.

They have learnt to shut-up in order to climb up the leader.

Yet even if the ABC had solid people as leaders it would still struggle to challenge the LCD because it is basically a Maseru-based party that has weak structures in the villages where the bulk of the voters are. Scrutator suspects that some of its overzealous supporters in Maseru don’t even vote.

Add that to the fact that the party itself is not really internally stable to understand why there is no chance in the world the ABC will form the next government.

There is the Lesotho Workers Party (LWP) which pretends to be a workers’ party in a country where a job is a privilege and the middle class is almost nonexistent.

Were it not for the fact that its deputy leader has something between his ears and is media friendly, that party would still be unknown.

The Basotho National Party (BNP) had its chance and it did a terrible job of it.

Thanks to its dictatorship this country’s economic development was so slow that even snails were envious.

The party ran this country worse than what Simon Thebe-ea-Khale did with his MKM Ponzi scheme.

When they were finally booted out they left a country that was broken (you may say what you want but democracy has done a lot to fix this country).

Many have not forgotten the pain of living in the mountains for days after the BNP government turned against the people. History tells us that the people rise against their government but the BNP government rose against the people of this country.

Little wonder then that the party’s supporters are now so few that they cannot fill even four carts (Oops, I meant to say four wheelbarrows).

The only reason the Marematlou Freedom Party is relevant is because you cannot talk about the 2007 Proportional Representation seats fiasco without mentioning its court case.

Scrutator however thinks the party has been mentioned in newspapers more times than it has been voted for in general elections. Senkatana is so useless that even mentioning it here should be considered scandalous.

The Basutoland Congress Party is now a shell after it was looted of supporters and decent minds by the LCD in 1997.

Well, some LCD minds have since been corrupted but there is no doubt that the BCP would have derived some benefits from them.

The Lesotho People’s Congress is just a one-man band whose music voters stopped dancing to as soon as it was formed.

The Popular Front for Democracy is a joke that has long ceased to be funny.

Does the Sefate Democratic Congress still exist? Did I forget to mention the National Independent Party? Mmmmmmmm, this is not a column about nyatsis.  We are talking serious politics here.

crutator would like to announce that the much awaited Wikileaks cables about Lesotho have arrived.

All those that have been busy backstabbing and badmouthing their leaders to the Americans will be “found”.

In the next few weeks all those things that you whispered to the US Embassy officials will be exposed.

There is going to be gnashing of teeth in Lesotho. Loyalties will be questioned and friendships broken. Scrutator is rubbing her hands with glee.

“Monongoaha ha se ngoahola (This year is not last year),” Scrutator’s mother used to say. Ache!

You can contact Scrutator at: scrutator29@gmail.com