Give Majoro the space to breathe

Lesotho’s opposition parties are piling fresh pressure on the government to re-open Parliament in what observers say is a ploy to oust the new government led by Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro. At the centre of the plot is the Alliance of Democrats (AD) led by former deputy Prime Minister Monyane Moleleki and the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) led by Mothetjoa Metsing. The AD and LCD are said to be lobbying disgruntled MPs from the Democratic Congress (DC), the All Basotho Convention (ABC) and the Movement for Economic Change (MEC) which form the current government. The idea, it would appear, is to topple the new coalition government and get back into power. While that may be their democratic right, the tactic comes with a lot of political baggage. After the sad and traumatic experience the country went through in the last days of Thomas Thabane, we thought our politicians would for once, give the new premier space to breathe. But hardly three months into office, the opposition parties are already ganging up on Majoro. It would appear this is a mere quest for political power by the opposition politicians. Besides, Majoro is only a caretaker Prime Minister who is finishing Thabane’s term which ends in 2022. The opposition must allow the man to finish this term and take him on in the 2022 general elections. To seek to upend his government which is barely two months old would send a message that they are merely doing so for selfish reasons that have nothing to do with Lesotho’s developmental agenda. Any attempts by the opposition to push out the Majoro-led government this soon will also not help stabilise Lesotho politically. In our opinion, the opposition must use the next two years to come up with attractive manifestos that they can sell to the electorate in 2022. Any attempts to oust the Majoro-led government at this point will send a wrong message to Basotho. Opposition politicians must focus on the bigger picture; this is not the time for politicking. In fact, the reason why our economy is in the doldrums is because of our rotten politics which we have pursued at the expense of cogent economic policy development; and that has been our downfall. While politicians are scheming to upend Majoro’s government, we have not heard any serious arguments why they would want him out so early. The question is, if he goes, then what? Isn’t this just a mere quest for power? As we have argued on this page previously, we do not believe in any way that Lesotho’s problems have anything largely to do with governance; they are economic and we know that the cake is just too small. So until we fix the economy and ensure every Mosotho has enough to feed his family and not go to bed hungry, we shall continue to haggle over the political. To resolve Lesotho’s problems, we must grow the economy. That will result in the creation of more jobs for Basotho. Sadly our politicians tussle for power because in their opinion it is their only avenue to the cookie jar; that is misguided. It would be sad were the opposition to succeed in its quest to topple the government at this juncture. That would, in fact, border on the abuse of democratic processes. The very idea that one can scheme to topple a government merely because you were not appointed a cabinet minister stinks. It must be rejected in toto.