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Knives out for Senate president, deputy

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MASERU – THE President of the Senate Dr ’Mamonaheng Mokitimi and her deputy, Tsukutlane Au, are facing ouster after they were slapped with a no-confidence letter.

A group of senators led by Principal Chief of Leribe, Joel Motšoene, are challenging Dr Mokitimi’s election, four months after she won elections for the Senate’s top job.

Chief Motšoene filed the no-confidence motion last week.

The motion will be raised immediately during the official opening of the Senate on March 7.

Chief Motšoene told thepost last night that there were some irregularities during the election of the Senate presiding officers.

He said they believe the elections were rigged.

“I will therefore present a motion of no-confidence towards the House of Senate before attending the Appropriation Bill which is going to be presented before the MPs,” he said.

Dr Mokitimi dodged a bullet a few months ago when the Senators demanded a recount of the votes.

The votes were recounted and still she came out the winner.

The recount of the ballots was conducted after some 12 Senators demanded that they be verified after alleging that the election might have been rigged.

The senators said they wanted to see the ballots to prove that the numbers tallied and that Dr Mokitimi indeed beat Koeneng Principal Chief Peete Lesaoana Peete in the November 3 election.

Chief Peete said one of the reasons behind the motion against the Senate President is that she does not want peace.

He said the Senate business does not operate well under her supervision.

“She enjoys seeing us separated in the House,” he said, adding that even during the elections, they raised several objections but they were not taken into consideration.

Chief Peete said there was no transparency during the elections as the ballots were seen by the President’s clerk alone.

“During the counting of ballots, the person in charge has to read the votes publicly,” he charged.

But to their surprise, the President’s clerk Advocate Tšeliso Molise was the only one who saw the votes and did not show them.

Chief Peete said they raised an objection and requested a recount which was done but the same thing was still repeated.

He said they requested Advocate Molise to recuse himself but he refused and continued to read the results.

He said this to them was an indication that he was hiding something from them because there was no way they could raise an objection that he should recuse himself during the recount but hesitated to do so and still continued to read the results.

Chief Peete said Advocate Molise was busy canvassing votes for Dr Mokitimi before the elections.

“One could not blame him for that action because Dr Mokitimi was the one who gave him a job,” he said.

“Maybe he was doing that to secure his job,” Chief Peete added.

Chief Motšoene said he could not get into details of the motion before the sitting of the Senate.
Advocate Molise said he was not surprised by the accusations levelled against him.

He said Chief Peete and Senator Motšoene raised the same allegations before but failed to give evidence to support their allegations.

He denied that he counted the results alone.

“It is not true that I cheated the vote count, it was done live on national television,” he said.

“We conducted the counting for a second time in the presence of the police and LCN and found the same outcome. These people have lobbied each other to vote for them not knowing that some would vote for their opponent, I did nothing wrong,” he said.

Chief Moholobela Seeiso of Matelile said he was not aware of the motion.

He said he had however learnt that there is a group of Senators that is not satisfied with the election results.

He said he fails to understand the fight because Dr Mokitimi won the elections fair and square.

Last night, Dr Mokitimi told thepost that the complainants are angry after she won the election and “they have failed to accept the election results”.

She said it is unfortunate that they are dragging her clerk into the war.

“They just don’t accept the results and they now wrongly accuse my clerk of something he did not do,” she said.

’Malimpho Majoro

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