{"id":20536,"date":"2022-10-14T10:22:57","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T10:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/why-the-dc-misfired"},"modified":"2022-10-14T10:58:56","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T10:58:56","slug":"why-the-dc-misfired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/why-the-dc-misfired","title":{"rendered":"Why the DC misfired"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>THE young are brave but the old are wise. The Democratic Congress (DC)\u2019s young leader, Mathibeli Mokhothu, ran a brave campaign but he could have done better with a bit of political wisdom.<\/p>\n

His major mistake was to underestimate Sam Matekane\u2019s Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) party. Even as people in his inner circle persistently warned him of the swelling political hurricane, Mokhothu remained overly confident that the RFP would not defeat the DC.<\/p>\n

Instead of taking Matekane head-on and couching his message to counter the RFP narrative, he insisted on hammering on the same old issues that had long ceased to resonate with the new voter.<\/p>\n

He reminded voters of the
\nDC\u2019s legacy instead of selling the future the party was planning for them. In making legacy his selling point Mokhothu had to mention his mentor, the DC\u2019s former leader Pakalitha Mosisili.<\/p>\n

For he could not talk about the DC\u2019s historical achievements without referring to Mosisili. And so he rattled them out. Old age pensions. Free primary education. The hospitals. The schools. The primary school feeding programme. There were two problems with that strategy.<\/p>\n

The first is that he was giving credit to Mosisili, the man that many believe overstayed in power and also set the country on the path to the economic crisis they experience now.<\/p>\n

The trend in the previous two elections had already proven that voters had fallen out of love with Mosisili. The second is that Mokhothu was speaking to a generation of voters who could no longer be pacified by the successes of the past.<\/p>\n

This is a generation that cannot appreciate what it was before Mosisili implemented those policies. Their interest is in what a party will do for them now and tomorrow.<\/p>\n

It is a generation hard to please because its expectations are lofty and ever-changing. If you give them a job they want one that is in line with their qualifications.<\/p>\n

Give them the one they were trained to do and they want more money for it. It is not about merely surviving but living well. They want it all and now.<\/p>\n

So the right message to them is not just jobs but the quality of the jobs. Their idea of business is not a small spaza shop but a company that makes big and sophisticated things.<\/p>\n

Agriculture is not about animal-drawn ploughs but tractors, combine harvesters and greenhouses. They want to sell what they produce in supermarkets and the international market, not in the bus stop area.<\/p>\n

A home to them is not a modest house in the village but a mansion. They want to earn well, dress well, eat well and travel the world. The DC\u2019s old age pensions and free primary education won\u2019t help them achieve that.<\/p>\n

But then there is also an older generation that had grown weary of the DC\u2019s promises. They remain thankful for the policies but they want more for themselves and their children.<\/p>\n

This generation too might have forsaken the DC to vote for the RFP. Once the legacy message failed to win hearts and minds, it was impossible for the DC to credibly sell a better future.<\/p>\n

It could not promise jobs, business opportunities and economic prosperity that its government had failed to deliver in the past three years. Mokhothu failed to read the political mood.<\/p>\n

He thought they would capitalise on the palpable public anger against the ABC. What he didn\u2019t realise is that the DC was being painted with the same oily brush.<\/p>\n

By forming a coalition government with the ABC, the DC entangled itself with a thoroughly loathed political party in decline. It could not wash itself of the ABC\u2019s failures.<\/p>\n

It shared the blame for the economic problems, corruption and unemployment. A DC in the opposition would have campaigned as the alternative to the ABC.<\/p>\n

And maybe, just maybe, there might not have been an incentive to form the RFP. But now that it was in the government it was seen as part of the problem that people wanted to jettison from power.<\/p>\n

Mokhothu was mistaken if he thought the power of incumbency would help his party in the election. The results show that this election was a referendum on the incumbent.<\/p>\n

Although it retained all but one of the seats won in the 2017 election, the party\u2019s share of the national vote dropped by about 40 000. Its share of the contested constituencies also shows that the party no longer enjoyed support in the rural strongholds that Mokhuthu thought would help him win.<\/p>\n

What remains are a few strongholds and pockets of support scattered across the country. Mokhothu\u2019s other mistakes were more recent. The party spent valuable campaign time fighting over the delimitation of the constituencies.<\/p>\n

The result was that it had to rush the selection of its candidates. The party does not seem to have thoroughly vetted some of the candidates, opening themselves to attack from an alert RFP which argued that some of them had not properly resigned before contesting.<\/p>\n

The DC lost two of its candidates because of that oversight. Even hours before the election there were still doubts about nine other candidates that were being queried by the RFP.<\/p>\n

At that moment, a wiser Mokhothu would have taken to the radio to allay his supporters\u2019 fears about the credibility of those candidates. But a brave Mokhothu thought the problem would fix itself and his supporters would know that the RFP was playing a political game.<\/p>\n

Some in the DC are asking if Mokhothu was the right man to replace Mosisili. That is a wrong question. The right one is whether Mokhothu is the right person to take the DC into the future. Self-preservation might tempt him to say he is but the DC\u2019s future doesn\u2019t look too secure under his leadership.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Lesotho<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Lesotho. THE young are brave but the old are wise. The Democratic Congress (DC)\u2019s young leader, Mathibeli Mokhothu, ran a brave campaign but he could have done better with a bit of political wisdom. His major mistake was to underestimate Sam Matekane\u2019s Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) party. Even as people in his inner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":20535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,10,16],"tags":[233,246,245,503],"class_list":["post-20536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-parties","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-political"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy the DC misfired - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"THE young are brave but the old are wise. 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