Pascalinah Kabi

DEPUTY Prime Minister Mathibeli Mokhothu’s Democratic Congress (DC) says it has recruited 67 000 new members this year alone. The figure exceeds the 63 000 target the party had set, its secretary general, Tšitso Cheba, said in a weekend interview with the Sunday Express.

This has seen the party membership increase to more than 300 000, Mr Cheba said, adding this gave them confidence of a resounding electoral victory in next year’s elections.

“Our 2021 calendar year ended on 30 November 2021 and we immediately carried an analysis of the statistics of the new members.  We are almost done with the analysis and the good news is that we have so far established that we have 67 000 new members. All in all, we have 315 472 members.

“This is a big achievement for the DC. We are very happy because our mandate, as per the 2019 elective conference, was for us to unify and grow the party to ensure that it is well positioned to outrightly win the elections or become the biggest party to enable us to form the next government,” Mr Cheba said.

He attributed their success to hard work, commitment and unity within the national executive committee (NEC). Unlike its All Basotho Convention (ABC) coalition partner, which has never known peace and stability since own 2019 elective conference, the DC has been the model of stability.

The party has rallied behind Deputy Prime Minister Mathibeli who replaced founding leader and former Prime Minister, Pakalitha Mosisili. At only 44 years old, the youthful Mr Mokhothu has benefited from a peaceful and orderly hand over of power by the now 76-year-old Mr Mosisili.

He has also worked hard to revamp the party’s image after it had been tarnished by the excesses of the army during its tenure in power particularly from 2015 to 2017. By contrast, the ABC leader, Thomas Thabane (82), is refusing to hand over power to his much younger deputy, Moeketsi Majoro who is 60 years old.

Commenting on their successes, Mr Cheba said, “even the though party constitution gives the NEC decision-making powers, we have strengthened ourselves by establishing a number of ad hoc committees to effectively deliver on set targets whenever necessary.

Therefore, our achievements cannot be attributed to the headquarters alone. They are down to collective responsibility and this goes to show that there is across-the-board support for our campaign to unify and grow the party.

“Unity and discipline have also been key to our success. We have remained focused and refused to be derailed by small challenges within the party. We don’t allow those small challenges to become serious problems. We deal with every single challenge as and when it arises and we move forward together,” he said.

He said Mr Mokhothu and the NEC held monthly meetings with district leaders and this had helped them have a clear understanding of the issues at the grassroots level.