{"id":18855,"date":"2022-08-15T08:20:07","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T08:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate"},"modified":"2022-08-15T08:55:41","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T08:55:41","slug":"abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate","title":{"rendered":"ABC at war over Thetsane candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>A fight over who should represent the All Basotho Convention (ABC) in the Thetsane constituency in Maseru spilled into court this week. Two separate constituency committees which were elected on June 11 and July 2 respectively are now fighting over who has the right to preside over the selection of a candidate this Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The June 11 committee is made up of Silase Mokhitli, Semonko Lesenyeho, Mako Chobokoane, Khoale Thene, Thabo Nkesi and \u2018Mathabo Makalanyane. The July 2 committee is made up of Motinyane Motinyane, \u2018Matsekiso Motinyane, \u2018Matokelo Morie, Mphonyane Kekana, Nondabesithe Babeli and Lelimo Monese.<\/p>\n<p>The June 11 committee filed an urgent application in the High Court yesterday seeking to interdict the July 2 committee from holding themselves out as the members of the constituency committee pending determination of their application.<\/p>\n<p>The June 11 committee also asks the court to order the party\u2019s spokesman, Montoeli Masoetsa, and the National Executive Committee to file a record of proceedings of the elective conference of July 2 for the constituency.<\/p>\n<p>They say the court should declare the July 2 committee election null and void. A lawyer representing the June 11 committee, Advocate Letuka Molati, in his certificate of urgency, said the July 2 committee prejudiced his clients. Advocate Molati said the July 2 committee is unlawfully preparing the nomination of the candidate for the Thetsane constituency on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cApplicants have no alternative remedy as the National Executive Committee of the All Basotho Convention is ignoring to pronounce itself on the matter such that the illegal body will prepare for the nominations of the candidates for the up-coming national elections,\u201d Advocate Molati said.<\/p>\n<p>The June 11\u2019s representative, Silase Mokhitli, told the court in an affidavit that Masoetsa and Senator Mphonyane Lebesa conducted the July 2 elections fraudulently.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the 11th June 2022, my co-applicants and I were elected as members of the constituency committee of the All Basotho Convention for the Thetsane constituency no. 34,\u201d Mokhitli said.<\/p>\n<p>Mokhitli said there was a peaceful handover of power from the old constituency committee and he was elected as the chairperson of the new Constituency committee.<\/p>\n<p>The newly elected constituency committee submitted reports to the NEC on June 13 that there was only one branch of Thetsane West that had abstained from the constituency committee elective conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe worked very well as the new constituency committee with the NEC of ABC for a period of about two weeks without any complaint,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said on June 24, he was surprised to get a call from the secretary general of ABC, Lebohang Hlaele, ordering him and the new committee to report at the party\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>Hlaele also invited the old committee, Mokhitli said. However, Hlaele was not in the office when they arrived on June 27. Instead they found one \u2019Maseeng Maputsoe who was accompanied by Masoetsa.<\/p>\n<p>Maputsoe asked why there were two committees in the Thetsane constituency. Mokhitli said there was only one committee for which he was the chairperson. He said there were no disputes as all went on smoothly. Mokhitli said after the deliberations, Maputsoe left with Masoetsa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey said they were going to deliberate alone and when they came back they said they made the decision that there should be a repeat of elections in Thetsane constituency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mokhitli said they were not satisfied and they wrote the executive committee seeking intervention but they have not received any response to date. Instead, Maputsoe and Masoetsa went to Thetsane constituency on July 2 to oversee the repeat of elections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey did not have any official document that shows delegation to them from the NEC of ABC,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey conducted everything through dictatorship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201d He said during the elections Masoetsa announced that he had expelled two branches and dissolved the four remaining branch committees out of six.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey then proceeded to conduct elections without verifying the cards of those who qualify to elect and he took 12 people from three branch areas,\u201d Mokhitli said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe took 13 people from Thetsane West branch which had abstained when I was elected on the 11th June 2022,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>When people objected, Mokhitli said, Masoetsa strangled one \u2019Mako Chobokoane with his clothing and one Semonko Lesenyeho came to his rescue. \u201cMasoetsa, when faced with another objection, assaulted \u2019Mako Chobokoane, and Lesenyeho intervened again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said Senator Lebesa \u201cwas electing on behalf of the electors\u201d. He said when Maputsoe was asked whether it was proper that Lebesa was writing ballot papers on behalf of voters, she said Lesenyeho could do what he wished.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMasoetsa and Maputsoe scolded everyone who objected,\u201d he said. He said the results of the elections were not announced publicly. Many people left in disgust, Mokhitli said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen there were about less than 20 remaining from the original number of more than 150 people Maputsoe announced (the results).<br \/>\nMokhitli argued that it would be wrong for people who were not rightly elected to prepare and hold an elective conference for the constituency candidate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fairness and democracy shall not reign. It is clear that democracy is already under threat,\u201d he said.<\/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. A fight over who should represent the All Basotho Convention (ABC) in the Thetsane constituency in Maseru spilled into court this week. Two separate constituency committees which were elected on June 11 and July 2 respectively are now fighting over who has the right to preside over the selection of a candidate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":18854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12,16],"tags":[233,246,343,245],"class_list":["post-18855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-basotho","tag-lesotho"],"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>ABC at war over Thetsane candidate - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A fight over who should represent the All Basotho Convention (ABC) in the Thetsane constituency in Maseru spilled into c ...\" \/>\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\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ABC at war over Thetsane candidate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A fight over who should represent the All Basotho Convention (ABC) in the Thetsane constituency in Maseru spilled into c ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate\" \/>\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=\"2022-08-15T08:20:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-15T08:55:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/08\/postQueueImg_24-62fa09f3b9127.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1536\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\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=\"4 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\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"ABC at war over Thetsane candidate\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-15T08:20:07+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-15T08:55:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate\"},\"wordCount\":845,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/08\/postQueueImg_24-62fa09f3b9127.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Basotho\",\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/abc-at-war-over-thetsane-candidate\",\"name\":\"ABC at war over Thetsane candidate - 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