Africa-Press – Lesotho. ON the eve of the 2015 general elections, Lesojane Leuta was suspended from the Basotho National Party (BNP) where he was serving as the secretary general.
To say he was hurt would be an understatement; he saw the suspension as a huge personal blow. A year later, Leuta was eventually expelled on the eve of the party’s annual general conference.
Leuta says a small clique which had coalesced around party leader, Thesele ’Maseribane, connived to boot him out. This was after he expressed serious concerns over the manner in which party funds were being handled.
But instead of dealing with the questions he was raising, the “hawks” aligned to ’Maseribane ganged up on him and booted him out. He was devastated. Leuta says that small cabal has now successfully seized control of the party and is running it like its own fief.
He says the group that pushed him out in 2015 had also attempted to nudge him out of the presidential election race on spurious grounds that he had defected and formed his own party.
The internal party elections are set for June 11-13. A defiant Leuta told thepost this week that the allegations that he had formed his own party were as nonsensical as they were incomprehensible.
He says he will not allow these dirty shenanigans to sidetrack him. What happened to Leuta is nothing new in the BNP. So far, four candidates have all confirmed that the election race has been messy and that it has been marked by bitter acrimony.
There has been a lot of mudslinging too. Leuta says what Basotho have seen over the last two months is politics of the gutter, as rivals exchanged barbs over radio stations. All this, Leuta says, is foreign and runs counter to the spirit and ethos of the party.
He speaks of himself as a “disciplined cadre” of the BNP, a party which he says he joined in 1965 as a 13-year-old boy when some of his current political adversaries were yet to be born.
The insults run counter to my Christian upbringing and ethos as a Mosotho, he says. In fact, he says listening to some of the insults has been a jarring experience for him.
What he would have preferred to see is a “rational debate” on issues that would allow BNP supporters to pick the best candidate for the party’s top job.
Unfortunately, he says the “noise” coming from the campaign trail will not allow party supporters to make that intelligent choice. Instead, whoever controls the “mob” and makes the most noise will come up trumps, a situation Leuta says would be tragic for the BNP.
He insists that the insults have inflicted serious damage on the BNP brand. While he remains confident over his electoral chances, it is clear that the bitter election race is taking its toll on Leuta, a soft-spoken man who picks his words carefully as if not to offend anyone.
It would be no surprise that in the dirty, cut-throat politics of the BNP, Leuta might look hopelessly out of place. “I want rational debate of issues not just hurling of abuse at other people,” he says.
“That’s not how I was raised in the party.
”
While Leuta does not openly refer to Machesetsa Mofomobe, one of the leading contestants in the race to succeed ’Maseribane, it is telling that he refers to him merely as “that young man”.
“The young man is very ill-disciplined,” he says. It is clear during the interview that he views the current deputy leader with absolute contempt.
He says hawks within the party tried all tricks to ensure he did not stand in the elections. “Now they are trying all sorts of tricks to make sure I do not win the elections.
” He says after he was expelled, he went to court seeking protection.
“I asked the court to please protect me from people who wanted to push me out of a party I joined when they were not even born.
” That matter was later settled out of court and his membership was eventually restored.
But even after those tumultuous events in 2015, the hawks in the party have still not given up – they still want to throw banana skins on his path to the presidency.
Despite trying to throw mud at him, Leuta says his political rivals “still can’t find anything against me” that can stick. “I excelled in the office of secretary general and increased the numbers (of voters for the party) from 23 000 in 2012 to 31 000 in 2015.
After they fired me, they went down to 23 000 again. ” Leuta says there has been rampant corruption and maladministration in the BNP for years. The result has been massive disillusionment with the BNP and its leadership with the party faithful staying away altogether from national politics.
He says he wants to restore dignity in the party. “There is an outcry that the party is not being managed properly so the first thing will be to bring back the confidence of members of the party,” he says.
He alleged that some of the people now at the helm of the party have been beneficiaries of the grand looting and corruption in the BNP. “The first task would be to rebuild the party into what it should be,” he says.
Leuta’s trump card appears to be his long association with the BNP. “I have been in the BNP long enough to appreciate some of the things not appreciated by some of the contenders.
” He says in 1984 the late party leader, Chief Leabua Jonathan, cautioned against the same tendencies that he sees today.
“I am telling them that if they don’t change their behavior, they will never taste power again.
” The BNP was ousted from power in a bloodless coup in January 1986.
With access to state resources blocked, the party has struggled to make an impact on the electoral map. It last won a constituency in 2015. The last time it had won a constituency was in 1993.
Since 2012, the BNP has relied on the benevolence of its coalition partners to stay in government. With its voice in government muffled, the party is now a shadow of its former self.
Critics say the BNP is way past its sell-by date and it will take herculean efforts if the party is to seize power again. Leuta however insists that with the right people at the helm, the damage can be reversed and the BNP can be a powerful force once again.
The first task though would be to oust people who have ruined the party during the elections next month. Leuta says there are people in the party “who don’t care about its welfare” such as its growth and how it is perceived by outsiders.
These people are damaging the party’s brand by resorting to insults. “Who would vote for such a party when it is led by such individuals?” He says he wants to instill discipline in the BNP. Leuta admits that the odds are heavily tilted against him and that the electoral playing field is not level.
His main bone of contention is that one of the leading contenders for the presidency, Mofomobe, has remained active as deputy leader of the party even when he has announced his intention to run in the elections.
That gives him an unfair advantage over the rest of us, Leuta says. “There are clear signs that the electoral contest might not be fair. The deputy leader, who is also a contender, seems to be running the show,” he says.
“Most of the members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) appear to be loyal to him and are doing his bidding. I am not sure if they will bend the other way. ” Leuta alleges that Mofomobe was using young “party thugs” to intimidate political opponents.
“The electoral playing field is not level and one can only hope that the delegates at the conference will behave rationally.
” Yet even when the field is skewed, Leuta remains confident that come June 13, he will be the new BNP leader.
“If common sense prevails and there is no chicanery, I am confident that I will win.
” That is a big “if”. Leuta is banking on the long years he has spent in the BNP trenches, fighting silent battles to win the hearts and souls of Basotho.
“Those who know me, know that I can deliver,” he says. He points to his time as the BNP secretary general where he says he helped set up an efficient and corruption-free office in the party.
As a former banker, all he wants to see is accountability in the BNP. He wants to rekindle the values of honesty and servant-leadership in the party. “I have been fighting corruption all my life,” he says.
Leuta spent 12 years at the Central Bank of Lesotho working in the currency management division and a further 18 years in bank supervision and exchange control.
“I learnt a lot of things there that can be useful to the party.
” He grew up at a time when the BNP was the darling of the masses. The party was locked in mortal combat with the Basotho Congress Party led by Ntsu Mokhehle.
He says the BNP was staunchly anti-Communist and hated the BCP which it saw as an agent of the Communist regime in China. Even at that young age, he was conditioned to hate “the Communist evil”.
“We were told that the Communists were going to forcefully marry all the nuns and that the churches were going to be converted into dance halls,” he says.
He says they were told by the French-Canadian Catholic priests that the BCP would force the nuns to marry and produce soldiers who would fight to entrench Communism around the world.
The anti-God doctrine of the Communist China went against everything that he had been taught as a young Catholic boy. And from that moment on, Leuta saw it as his “divine duty” to oppose the BCP and all that it stood for.
“Mao’s cultural revolution did a lot to crystalise our anti-Communist philosophy.
”
The young Leuta, who grew up surrounded by white priests and nuns in Matsieng, about 40km south of the capital Maseru, would religiously attend church services every Sunday.
“There were no excuses,” he says. And while most of his age-mates were going to initiation schools, his grandmother summoned him one day and “told him to go to school”.
“They were going to the mountains and after the mountains, they would go to work in the mines in South Africa.
”
He rejects the narrative that the BNP was a ruthless party that committed atrocities arguing that both sides were equally to blame for what happened after the 1970 disputed elections.
“The BNP was not alone in this brutality. I know of horrendous things that were done by the BCP against BNP members. It was not one-sided traffic. ”
Leuta says he is grateful for the values of honesty and hard work that he picked as a young Catholic boy in Matsieng, values he thinks can now be of service to the BNP as he tries to clean up the party’s soiled past.
He believes the BNP can still win a properly run election provided the party elects the right candidate to lead it. He believes he can offer such leadership.
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