Africa-Press – Lesotho. THE Movement for Economic Change (MEC) bigwigs are in a bitter fight with constituency committees over the selection of local government election candidates.
The MEC’s National Executive Committee has now filed an urgent application in the High Court in an attempt to reverse the names that were submitted to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for the Maputsoe and Butha-Buthe constituencies.
The MEC leadership has also asked the court to order the IEC to reject the names of candidates that were submitted to it by the Maputsoe and Butha-Buthe committees. It says the names were submitted without their approval.
In an affidavit, the Mosilinyane (Maputsoe) constituency committee secretary, ’Mampho Mokemane, said her role was to ensure that she prepared the list of candidates and submit it to the IEC.
She said the upcoming local government elections are different from normal constituency elections in that they overlap in between constituencies and that calls for joint decision-making between constituencies.
She said the IEC had informed the nation that all those who were interested in participating as candidates in the upcoming elections should register before August 4. She said on the closing day, the Maputsoe constituency committee unilaterally submitted the list.
“I was informed by (one) Maqelepo on the same day that the list was submitted, and I immediately informed the secretary general Napo Moshoeshoe (to intervene),” Mokemane said.
She said Moshoeshoe then approached the offices of the IEC but was told that he should seek redress in the courts of law. She said the IEC refused to entertain Moshoeshoe’s request.
Mokemane said she was then advised by their lawyer that submission of candidate lists before elections was “an extremely delicate issue which ought to have been arrived at jointly by the Mosilinyane committee and Maputsoe executive committee”.
“Therefore it was incorrect for the Maputsoe Executive Committee to have submitted the candidates’ list without involving us,” she said.
She pleaded with the court to treat the matter with urgency and issue interim relief for the dispensation of the normal modes and periods because if the normal modes and periods were to be followed, the IEC might rely on the malicious candidate list submitted thereby causing the general public irreparable harm.
She added that there was no other remedy to explore because the amicable approach they suggested to the IEC was not accepted. The Butha-Buthe constituency committee secretary, Mokhabi Mokhabi, also deposed to an affidavit arguing that the list submitted from their constituency was not correct.
Mokhabi said the list was submitted by an ordinary party member, ’Maleoatle Sethunya, and “as a result the court should declare that list null and void”.
He said the committees were not involved in making that decision. Moshoeshoe, the MEC secretary general, confirmed that he approached the IEC offices to resolve the mistakes in Butha-Buthe and Maputsoe constituencies. He said he was told to approach the courts to resolve the matter.
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