Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Basotho Action Party (BAP) has been rocked by infighting, which now threatens the very survival of this organisation formed by former All Basotho Convention (ABC) members in April 2021.
At the heart of this strife are party leader, Professor Nqosa Mahao and the party’s secretary-general (SG) Lebohang Thotanyana, whose public spats are increasingly pointing to an organisation slowly heading for doom unless they find each other before it is too late.
Lesotho Times (LT) Political Editor, ’Marafaele Mohloboli, spoke to Professor Mahao on Tuesday this week, to find out what is exactly going on in the BAP.
LT: We have noted that the Basotho Action Party (BAP), like many other parties before it, is experiencing its fair share of infighting. Could you please tell us more on what is really going on?
Prof Mahao: It is not a secret anymore that there is infighting within the BAP. This is after we discovered that there is someone in our party’s leadership structures who is busy sowing factionalism.
And we only suspect that he is busy doing that because he is headed elsewhere. LT: What do you think is the source of this infighting? Prof Mahao: The biggest source for this is the party list, which we used to line up our people who would be going into parliament after the election.
The BAP is very democratic and transparent when drawing its party list and this is where our problem emanated from. What normally happens is that a party draws up a closed party list and we prepared ours and submitted it to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) as should happen, and this means once that is done, it is cast in stone.
We again embrace the zebra-crossing model. We don’t use the method where people sit down with the leader and conspire on who should be considered for such list. Ours is very open, where each one brings with them their item into the agenda, and we all get to deliberate on it.
We then started with the top six officials who get to be nominated by their constituencies three months before the election, and the list goes up to the secretary-general, mindful of incorporating the zebra model.
Like any other party, we had expectations on the election results and were eyeing at least 13 seats, but we only got six. This means the secretary-general was left out on the list even though he is the fourth official.
After the election results were announced, the SG came to my place at night and asked me to remove the person whose name came before his and put him on the list instead.
But that was not for me to decide because according to the BAP’s constitution, unlike other parties, the leader doesn’t have special powers and all decisions are made collectively.
I then asked that he presents his proposal in our meeting. He (SG Thotanyana) did not present his case and I guess he wanted to use me to do it on his behalf, which was impossible because I don’t have powers to do so.
It was after this that he started getting very demoralised and sowing divisions among the members of the party. He also started leaving some of his party responsibilities unattended. LT: When you saw all these things happening, what did you do?
Prof Mahao: When I observed this behaviour, I decided that we go for an introspection conference, to which we still had to go anyway after we had not performed well in the election, but the SG advised against it, saying it would only plunge the party into further divisions.
I then proposed that we call in our consultants to give us counselling as this would accommodate everyone and this materialised. I then again proposed that we adopt three policy documents which were still pending to be deliberated on in our scheduled policy conference which would be held soon.
This was just so as to have people focus on other positive things and have the policy papers as part of the outcome of that conference, but once more the proposal was rejected by the SG who went into the party WhatsApp groups and influenced that it be rejected.
The factionalism was now growing, and I know so because he is the one who administers those groups and therefore has an influence. LT: What was the purpose of these groups? Prof Mahao: These were groups that were opened before the establishment of the BAP.
I was then vying for the deputy leadership of the ABC after I had been approached by some of its members to contest in that position, until we won and I had introduced him to the ABC secretary-general.
LT: Had you always known the SG, and what was your first impression of him when he approached you to join the ABC? Prof Mahao: Yes and no. I had not had any engagement with him on a personal level, not much, but trust me, he managed to use his charm on me even though other members of the party were not comfortable with us being close.
I was warned against him but didn’t listen. That was until I had a personal encounter with him while I was Justice Minister, and the Commissioner of Correctional Services was appointed.
He had approached me alongside other staunch ABC members who were very angry with the appointment, while I had just submitted names to the Prime Minister as he is the one who gets to appoint.
They were accusing me of appointing the wrong person as they wanted the one who had promised to give them tenders. Before I knew it, they stormed out of my house and left me puzzled and shortly thereafter, I was left alone in the WhatsApp groups.
It is in the same groups that some people were attacked and insulted and in June, things reached a climax and I ordered that the groups be dismantled.
LT: Was the order to dismantle the groups adhered to? Prof Mahao: Not at all! Instead, the SG had decided to go and influence the rest of the members to refuse. LT: How true is it that your party hasn’t accounted for its party and campaign funding? Prof Mahao: That’s absolutely not true.
We did account but our report had been misplaced and our treasurer had to compile a new one, and when the SG was approached to append his signature, he refused just to spite us so that we would not get the funding, only for the misplaced report which still had his signature to be found and we got our funds.
He just wanted to see us suffer financially because he is working with another party to bring us down. LT: Would you mind mentioning the party that you believe he’s conniving with?
Prof Mahao: I know that he has people he is working closely with, within the Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) and they are the ones who are even paying for his slander campaigns on various radio stations to cause instability in the BAP.
LT: A few weeks ago, when a motion of no confidence against RFP leader and Prime Minister, Sam Matekane, was looming in parliament, Mr Thotanyana told us in an interview that the PM needed to be given a chance to rule.
What did you make of this statement and where does the BAP stand on this? Prof Mahao: What should be clear is that the BAP doesn’t just formulate views without engaging on issues concertedly. And this issue has never been on our agenda, not even in our caucus.
Nothing really was binding for him to have made such a pronouncement, but funnily and coincidentally, he started posting this on Facebook because that was the same day that government had called all its MPs to show confidence in the PM, and he and his friends thought the opposition had a similar agenda.
So that was a way of countering all this. But little did he know that as the opposition, we had just called the presser so that we could raise our concerns on the meddling of security agencies in political affairs. This goes to prove that he has more contact with the RFP than he has with us, as his own party.
LT: There have been allegations that you and the rest of the opposition leadership have been having clandestine meetings at the home of former Alliance of Democrats (AD) leader, Monyane Moleleki, where you have been plotting the removal of Prime Minister Matekane.
Is there anything you would like to say on this? Prof Mahao: This is absurd, more so coming from a member of parliament. It just goes to show how petty our politics are. It’s not true.
The first and last time I have ever been to Mr Moleleki’s house was some 21 years ago when I had just moved place to the neighbourhood, and he had come to my place to invite us for dinner with his family. I have never, ever set my foot there again.
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