Caswell Tlali
MASERU – A crisis meeting between the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), government and opposition parties failed to break the impasse over local government elections on Thursday.
The opposition has refused to accept the IEC’s move to postpone the polls from April to June and has accused the electoral commission of not consulting before making the decision.
They also rejected IEC chairperson Limakatso Mokhothu’s compromise deal to move the elections to May instead of June.
Instead opposition leaders who attended the stormy meeting called on Mokhothu and her fellow commissioners to resign for allegedly failing to conduct the elections in
April as stakeholders had agreed last year.
The stalemate began last Friday when opposition leaders discovered during a routine meeting with the IEC that the local council elections had been postponed.
When the parties did not resolve
the dispute at the Friday indaba the
IEC called another meeting on Thursday.
On Monday a closed meeting of opposition leaders decided to lobby for Mokhothu’s removal if she insists on going ahead with the postponement.
And on Thursday the leaders told the IEC that they were in no mood for a compromise.
“I stand by our statement that the IEC should go,” said Vincent Malebo, the leader of the Marematlou Freedom Party, who was also vocal during the Friday meeting.
With opposition leaders hurling accusations at her, Mokhothu strenuously denied that the commission had discussed the new election date with the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) party.
“Operationally, the IEC is independent and it treats the LCD like all other parties,” she said amidst muffled grumblings from the opposition leaders who over the years have accused the commission of bias.
“The LCD, like all other parties saw the programme for the first time when we distributed it at last week’s meeting.
“Those who say we take instructions from the government should bring forth evidence,” she added.
Government officials in the meeting also tried to distance themselves from the IEC’s decision to postpone the elections.
Local Government Minister Ponts’o Sekatle told the angry opposition leaders that the government knew nothing about the IEC’s plan to move the polls.
Sekatle said it was wrong to assume that the IEC was taking instructions from the government.
“The plan to postpone elections was never discussed with us (government),” Sekatle said. “I don’t see why the IEC commissioners should be dismissed.”
Deputy Prime Minister Lesao Lehohla, who is also the deputy leader of the LCD, told the opposition leaders only a referendum could decide whether the IEC should be disbanded or not. Malebo seconded Lehohla’s suggestions.
“The referendum as suggested by the deputy prime minister seems to be the only route we should take and by so doing we will heal ourselves,” Malebo said.
The National Independent Party (NIP) leader Serame Khampepe was booed by other opposition leaders when he said his party had not been invited to the Monday meeting where the decision to push for the IEC’s dissolution had been made.
“I am of the feeling that opposition parties which disagreed with this idea were suppressed,” Khampepe, whose NIP party is an ally of the LCD in parliament and government, said.
“I asked them (opposition leaders) if this decision was voted for and they said no,” he said.
The opposition will meet again on Tuesday to discuss Mokhothu’s new suggestion to have the elections in May but at a press conference soon after the Thursday meeting the opposition leaders insisted that the IEC should be disbanded for failing to organise the elections.