Bongiwe Zihlangu
MASERU — The Christian Council of Lesotho (CCL) says the dialogue on the dispute over proportional representation (PR) seats is over.
But the opposition still insists that the dialogue did not deal with some of their outstanding grievances.
They said they are still bitter that the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) has refused to give back the PR seats it allegedly illegally amassed after the 2007 election and still does not recognise the leader of the opposition in parliament.
Opposition parties say they have now lost hope that dialogue alone can persuade the government to deal with those grievances.
The CCL led by Bishop Phillip Mokuku has been mediating the dispute since 2009.
On Thursday Mokuku issued a glowing statement announcing that the dialogue has been “formally concluded” and encouraged the nation to support its outcome.
The statement was released after Thursday’s meeting which was also attended by Sadc officials from Swaziland and Mozambique
Government officials, opposition leaders as well as officials from the Independent Electoral commission (IEC) also attended the meeting.
Mokuku said the stakeholders “agreed that all the issues to the dialogue had been dealt with, thus paving pay for the next elections”.
He said the stakeholders had agreed to a law reform process “that would see the constitution and the Electoral Act being reviewed to incorporate changes and proposals made within the mediation process”.
The ultimate result of this dialogue, the bishop said, were the National Assembly Electoral Bill (2010) and 6th Amendment of the constitutional which are currently being discussed in parliament. But opposition parties say Mokuku’s statement that all the “issues to the dialogue” had been dealt with is misleading.
Sello Maphalla, the deputy leader of the Lesotho Worker’s Party (LWP), yesterday said while they had agreed to conclude the “first phase” of the dialogue there were still some outstanding issues that needed to be resolved.
“We feel that serious issues such as the improper allocation of PR seats and acknowledgment of the official leader of the opposition are still outstanding,” Maphalla said.
“Although we feel strongly that those issues should have been addressed effectively, the mediation process has not done it. We’ve given up. You’ll never hear us talk about them again.”
He said opposition parties were also unhappy with National Assembly speaker Ntlhoi Motsamai’s hard-line stance against acknowledging Thabane, as the official leader of the opposition.
Lesotho People’s Congress leader, Kelebone Maope, said the mediation had failed to achieve anything significant for the opposition. He said since the opposition had managed to prove that the PR seats were wrongly allocated, LCD and IEC should have at least acknowledged that mistakes were made.
The IEC, Maope said, should have admitted that it did not allocate the seats properly and the LCD should acknowledge that it unfairly benefited from that mistake.
“Some acknowledgment of the matter could have gone a long way. But the LCD and IEC pretended as if it was business as usual, as if all was well. Now it’s already too late to change things.”
Maphalla, Maope, Marematlou Freedom Party’s Moeketse Malebo, Popular Front for Democracy’s Lekhetho Rakuoane and Basotho Democratic National Party deputy leader Pelele Letsoela attended the meeting that led to Mokuku’s statement.
However, ABC leader Thabane snubbed the meeting.
The government was represented by Deputy Prime Minister Lesao Lehohla, Foreign Affairs Minister Mohlabi Tsekoa, Local Government Minister Ponts’o Sekatle and Justice, Law and Constitutional Affairs Minister Mpeo Mahase-Moiloa.
The Sadc delegation was made up of two officials from Swaziland and Mozambique.
Maope said had the CCL revealed on time the contents of the expert opinion on the High Court judgment of the now infamous Marematlou Freedom Party case “we could have achieved something on that score”.
“But the CCL decided to sit on the expert report which cited that the court had actually not made a judgment although the LCD was adamant that the courts had dealt with the matter. The CCL let us down,” he said.
MFP lost its case on the PR seats issue in the High Court which dismissed the party’s application as null and void on the basis that it (the court) had no jurisdiction over the matter and that MFP did not have “locus standi” to bring the case before the courts.
According to Maope the roadmap which stakeholders had set for themselves “has not been achieved”.
“There’s nothing outstanding about what we’ve achieved regarding the roadmap. Whatever little we have managed to do could have been done a long time ago,” he said.
Lehohla could not be reached for comment on the matter yesterday as his number was not available.
Official government spokesperson Mothetjoa Metsing’s mobile phone was not unanswered when this paper tried to contact him.