Majoro’s ‘to do’ list

DR Moeketsi Majoro, who was sworn in as Lesotho’s next Prime Minister this week, comes into power at a perilous time for Lesotho. In his in-tray, Majoro will find a long “to-do” list of urgent issues that he must quickly grapple with if he is to make an immediate impact on the lives of the people. Chief among these are issues of rampant poverty, massive joblessness, disease in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic and a shrinking private sector. All these pose a serious existential threat to Lesotho. Prime Minister Thomas Thabane is leaving office at a time when his regime has inflicted deep scars on the conscience of society. As a result, trust in politicians is perhaps at its lowest ebb. The majority of Basotho feel badly let down by Thabane after a disastrous 35 months in office. Instead of rolling back the frontiers of poverty, we saw a greedy cabal unashamedly coalescing around Thabane for wealth accumulation. Majoro must disassociate himself from this cabal. That Thabane had to be stampeded out of office, screaming and kicking, only served to puncture the people’s trust in politicians. Majoro must restore the people’s confidence in government as a force for good. Majoro is taking over the reins in a country that has been crying out for a clean break from the vacuous politics that we had become accustomed to over the last year or so. We need a focused leadership with ideas to take this country forward. Small as we are, we remain a country with massive potential for growth. But that requires the right leadership – the right people, in the right places to drive economic policies. We need a leadership with big dreams on how to transform this country. We cannot continue to recycle the same old tired faces. Majoro must therefore resist the temptation to clog Cabinet with party loyalists who only sing for their supper. In other words, Cabinet positions must be handed out based on merit. It is clear that the last few months of Thabane’s reign much time and resources were squandered as he fought to stay in power at all costs even when it was clear that he was well past his sale-by date. We know that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat the same mistakes. Majoro must therefore be an ardent student of history and learn from Thabane’s mistakes. Perhaps one of the biggest things Majoro must quickly learn is that he must quickly keep his wife in check and manage relationships within his own party and with his coalition partners. That will require a delicate balancing act. Majoro is coming into power on the back of a deal with the main opposition Democratic Congress (DC) party. He will need to work closely with his party’s National Executive Committee which he does not control. Majoro will need to find a way to deal with the big elephant in the room – the party’s deputy leader Professor Nqosa Mahao. But it is not politics that will save Majoro. What will save him is jobs and more jobs for Basotho. The new premier must work to strengthen the private sector to create more jobs. We have always believed that Lesotho needs to plow more resources in agriculture and tourism to create more jobs for Basotho. If Majoro does half of what he should do, then he would be on the path to greatness and political immortality.