04
Sep
The Deputy Prime Minister, Mothetjoa Metsing, was temporarily put in charge (as per the constitution), but Metsing has now also left Lesotho for South Africa. Currently, a power vacuum exists in the country. King Letsie III has moved to appoint a Cabinet to run the country, although who it is to be comprised of is not clear. Indeed, the situation remains very confused. Thabane has denounced the events as an attempted coup by the army. The Lesotho Defence Force however has stated that it just stepped in after receiving information that the police were conspiring to supply weapons to participants in a planned demonstration in Maseru, the capital. What is happening is all very redolent of the country’s trouble political history.
Recurring crises
The country, totally surrounded by South Africa and the size of Belgium but with a population of just two million, has long been unstable. Known as Basutoland during the colonial period, Lesotho gained its independence from London in 1966 as a constitutional monarchy under Moshoeshoe II. The ruling Basotho National Party (BNP) lost the first post-independence general election to the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP). However, the incumbent Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan refused to hand over office and threw the leadership of the BCP into prison.
This then provoked the BCP to begin an armed rebellion, with militants receiving training in Libya for a putative Lesotho Liberation Army (LLA). Rather comically, the LLA militants conned Gadhafi into thinking that they were from the armed wing of the anti-apartheid Pan Africanists Congress (PAC). When the LLA relocated to Tanzania after training was completed, they were rumbled and their weapons taken off of them. Reduced to just over one hundred men, the “army” was rescued through the financial assistance of a sympathetic PAC member, who was inclined to Maoism and saw the LLA as a “peoples’ army”. The LLA’s subsequent guerrilla war was ineffective and never seriously challenged the BNP’s hold on power. The main LLA force was wiped out in 1979, but it staggered on with some assistance from the apartheid-era Bantustan of Transkei, with ex-Rhodesians involved in training.
This South African connection was in response to a new policy by Jonathan which started to promote the ANC and criticise Pretoria. Leabua Jonathan was subsequently overthrown in 1986 by a military coup, one which was very convenient for South Africa. A junta (the “Transitional Military Council”) was established, which granted executive powers to Moshoeshoe II. A year later however, the king was forced into exile after he demanded executive powers. His son replaced him as King Letsie III.
Return to democracy
In 1991 Major General Justin Metsing Lekhanya, head of the military council was ousted and replaced by Major General Elias Phisoana Ramaema. Ramaema earned his place in the country’s history by handing over power to a democratically elected civilian government in 1993, with the BCP in power.
However, the status of Moshoeshoe II was to cause serious instability. The exiled king returned to Lesotho as an ordinary citizen and King Letsie III then embarked on a campaign to reinstate his father as Lesotho’s head of state, something which the BCP refused to do. Subsequently, in late 1994 Letsie III staged a coup against the BCP government. After mediation by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the BCP government was reinstated in 1995 whilst Letsie III abdicated in favour of his father. A year later however, Moshoeshoe II died in a suspicious “car accident” and Letsie III again became king.
Splits within the BCP led to the Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhehle forming a new party, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), in 1997. Mokhehle convinced the majority of MPs to follow him into the LCD, which then headed a new government. Pakalitha Mosisili succeeded Mokhehle as party leader and the LCD won the elections of 1998. The opposition parties rejected the results. This led to various protests across the country intensified, climaxing with a demonstration outside the royal palace in August 1998. When the demonstrators actually occupied the grounds to the palace, it appeared that the army, police and Letsie III were involved in a rolling coup attempt. Mosisili requested the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to intervene and the South African government sent in troops to quell the unrest (some troops from Botswana were also involved). Violence and looting broke out and by the time the South Africans left in May 1999, parts of the capital were destroyed.
Intensification of the permanent crisis
Proportional representation was introduced in 1998, with elections being held under this system in May 2002. The LCD won with 54% of the vote, although opposition parties won a numbers of seats. It was Lesotho’s first ever peaceful election. However, in 2006 the Minister of Communications, Science and Technology, Thomas Thabane resigned from the government and formed a new party, the All Basotho Convention (ABC). A number of MPs crossed the floor to join him and as this left the LCD with a wafer-thin majority, Mosisili called an early election in 2007. The LCD won 61 of the 80 seats, with the ABC gaining 17.
In mid-2007, there was an assassination attempt on Thabane and political violence gained traction. This was graphically witnessed in April 2009 when there was an alleged assassination attempt against Mosisili involving a bodyguard of Thabane’s. Accusations and counter-accusations regarding who was responsible for the violence dominated politics in the country and provided the backdrop to the 2012 elections when Thabane was elected prime minister leading a three party coalition. Instability continued and in late June 2014, Thabane suspended parliament claiming that a coup d’état was about to be launched against the government. This move neatly prevented the parliament from engaging in its vote of no confidence against him. Rumours within the army confirmed that a coup against Thabane was planned, whilst Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing helpfully suggested that he would form a new government if Thabane’s was removed.
What now?
Currently, the Lesotho Defence Force is seemingly beyond political control. It has disarmed the police and is now the de facto ruler of the country. Who actually is leading the army is unclear. . It has been claimed that Lieutenant General Tlali Kamoli, commander of the LDF is responsible for the coup. Kamoli is an ex-student of mine…
Apparently Thabane ordered Kamoli’s resignation and planned to replace him with Lieutenant General Maaparankoe Mahao. Mahao escaped from Lesotho at the weekend after an assassination attempt and now apparently faces a court martial for “conduct unbecoming an officer”. Meanwhile, from the safety of Pretoria, Mahao is denouncing Kamoli as a “renegade general”.
The backdrop to all this is Lesotho’s lamentable political economy. The only natural resources the country has are water and diamonds, with the water being sold to South Africa. About 80% of the resident population are engaged in subsistence agriculture. Of the formal wage earners, about one in five work as migrant labourers in South Africa, whilst another one in five work in the low-skilled, low-pay garment industry, in mostly Asian-owned factories. The bulk of those employed are females. Unemployment runs at 45%. The country is a classic example of underdevelopment and dependency, with Lesotho’s economy almost wholly dependent upon South Africa. the country really is not viable as an independent state and talk of it being incorporated into South Africa has been up for debate since it was first declared a protectorate by the British back in 1868 to protect the inhabitants from the Boers. Since then, it has basically been a giant labour reserve. With no real economy, the political class is split down highly personalised lines and has not been shy of manipulating the military for its own ends. The military in turn see themselves as “above politics” but equally frequently interfere. A hapless police force is incapable of implementing the rule of law. It is unlikely that the current crisis will resolve anything for the majority of Lesotho’s population.How this plays out will be of immense interest to all African observers.
Ian Taylor is Professor of International Relations and African Politics at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
The views expressed do not reflect those of the Project and Fahamu.