{"id":13076,"date":"2022-04-15T11:02:40","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T11:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political"},"modified":"2022-04-16T10:26:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-16T10:26:00","slug":"lesothos-richest-man-gets-political","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political","title":{"rendered":"Lesotho\u2019s richest man gets political"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>The arrival of new political parties in Lesotho is commonplace \u2014 the country of about two million people has 53 of them. But Sam Matekane\u2019s Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) may have more of a shot at reshaping the political landscape than most.<\/p>\n<p>Matekane, reputed to be Lesotho\u2019s richest man, is known for his extensive business and philanthropic endeavours, which may well propel Matekane\u2019s RFP to the upper echelons of Lesotho\u2019s politics this year.<\/p>\n<p>The general elections in September were always going to be a watershed, considering Pakalitha Mosisili and Tom Thabane, the two men who served as prime minister from 2002 to 2020, have both retired.<\/p>\n<p>In January the race opened up even more with the splintering of the ruling All Basotho Convention (ABC) into two factions. The sitting prime minister, Moeketsi Majoro, lost the ABC leadership battle to Nkaku Kabi, leaving the biggest party irrevocably split.<\/p>\n<p>The Lesotho populace has been souring on electoral politics over the past decade of political turmoil. Only 47% of the electorate voted in 2017 and fewer than half of Basotho surveyed in 2019 thought elections were the best way to choose leaders.<\/p>\n<p>Matekane made his money in transport, construction, property and mining. He has built public visibility through charitable giving, ranging from new schools and sports fields to leading a private-sector effort to increase the supply of Covid-19 vaccines in Lesotho.<\/p>\n<p>His party will soon show whether it has the organisational chops and staying power to win elections, but his reputation likely makes his new party an attractive option come September, to an electorate disillusioned by \u201cpolitics as usual\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>This article first appeared in The Continent, the pan-African weekly newspaper produced in partnership with the Mail &amp; Guardian and designed to be read and shared on WhatsApp. Download your free copy here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\">Lesotho<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. The arrival of new political parties in Lesotho is commonplace \u2014 the country of about two million people has 53 of them. But Sam Matekane\u2019s Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) may have more of a shot at reshaping the political landscape than most. Matekane, reputed to be Lesotho\u2019s richest man, is known for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":13075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,12,16],"tags":[233,246,245,503],"class_list":["post-13076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-political"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Lesotho\u2019s richest man gets political - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The arrival of new political parties in Lesotho is commonplace \u2014 the country of about two million people has 53 of them. ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lesotho\u2019s richest man gets political\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The arrival of new political parties in Lesotho is commonplace \u2014 the country of about two million people has 53 of them. ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-04-15T11:02:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-04-16T10:26:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/04\/img-625a9998432fd.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"696\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Lesotho\u2019s richest man gets political\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-04-15T11:02:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-04-16T10:26:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political\"},\"wordCount\":314,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/04\/img-625a9998432fd.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\",\"political\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/lesothos-richest-man-gets-political\",\"name\":\"Lesotho\u2019s richest man gets political - 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