Lesotho - Monyalotsa joins BAP

(MENAFN- The Post)

MASERU – NKHETŠE Monyalotsa has defected from the Socialists for Revolutionaries (SR) to the Basotho Action Party (BAP).
This makes the BAP the sixth party he has joined since 1967 when he became Politically active.

A controversial figure, Monyalotsa had been the SR's deputy leader since its formation by flamboyant payday loan business mogul Teboho Mojapela.
Never one to go silently, he announced his defection at a BAP rally in Maputsoe last Sunday.
His reasons were almost the same as those he gave when leaving the previous five Political parties.

He said the SR leader, Mojapela, is a tyrant who manages the party like his fief.
Mojapela is mismanaging the party, he said amid cheers from the BAP crowd.
“Mojapela disregards opinions of members and he is not the one to be confronted when he is wrong,” he said.
He said the self-made tycoon running a string of moneylending businesses in Lesotho and South Africa insults poor members of the party.
“For one to win the hearts of the people they have to beg and beg. You cannot mock people who joined your party about their worn-out shoes and that they are so broke that they cannot buy the party regalia,” Monyalotsa said.

“Who could stay under those circumstances, no one,” he said.
But Mojapelo has fired back, calling Monyalotsa a bitter and lying old man who will not be missed by anyone in the SR.
Mojapela told thepost yesterday that Monyalotsa's defection is“good riddance because the old man, I'm sorry to say, is a pathological liar”.
“I should respect him because of his age but at the same time, I have to be bold enough to say he is lying,” Mojapela said.

“Monyalotsa should have told you that he was running away from a disciplinary action he was facing in the party after he went around lying maliciously about me and the party.”
“It's just that he fled before we could discipline him for his bad behaviour, old as he is.”
He said Monyalotsa's gripe with him started when he stopped paying him a M2 500 monthly stipend.

“I used to give him some money whenever we met until one day our treasurer told me that she accompanied Monyalotsa to his home and saw that the was living in serious poverty,” he said.
“Monyalotsa was cooking his food on the fireplace burning wood and cow dung. The treasurer asked me to help him and I started paying him M2 500 every month.”
Mojapela said he realised that he was paying too much to party members.
“According to my calculations I had paid M250 000 to several party members and I decided to reduce it”.

“If I continued like that I would end up bankrupt”.
He said Monyalotsa was one of the people he stopped paying.
“Monyalotsa is someone who does not work at all for the party, he is lazy”.
Mojapela said after he stopped paying him Monyalotsa started bad mouthing him.
“He was supposed to come to the disciplinary hearing so that he answers why he was misbehaving and instead of doing so he decided to run away. It's good riddance,” he said.

Mojapela said his stance concerning the poor people is that“those who do not have money should not be elected to parliament, at least they should not be the majority in parliament”.
“There is nothing to be ashamed about this,” Mojapela said, adding:“We have seen people who cannot even afford to buy shoes going to parliament and once they are there they get busy enriching themselves forgetting about the voters.”

“It's high time we take people who have money to parliament, those who are already rich or those who are not struggling to buy bread. We have seen how poor MPs dealt us a blow.”
Mojapela said he is not against poor people as Monyalotsa puts it but wants“people who will work for the poor not those who will work for themselves”.
“Monyalotsa is maliciously and deliberately misinterpreting my words.”
“He knows our stance very well, that we mean good for the poor people and they should not give their votes to people who will be preoccupied with amassing wealth for themselves once they get to parliament.”

Monyalotsa joined active politics in 1967 when he became a member of the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP).
He remained in the party until 1997 when leader Ntsu Mokhehle left to form the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD).
Later when the BCP had another major split in the early 2000s and the leader, the late Molapo Qhobela founded the Basutoland African Congress (BAC), Monyalotsa defected with him.
In 2006 when the LCD split and Thomas Thabane defected to form the All Basotho Convention (ABC) Monyalotsa left with Thabane after complaining of Qhobela's tyranny.

In 2009 after many fights with Thabane, Monyalotsa, who was then the MP for Maputsoe constituency, crossed the floor to join the ruling LCD. He said Thabane was a tyrant and was running the party like his personal property.
Five years ago in 2017 when Mojapela defected from the ABC and formed the SR, Monyalotsa joined him and became his deputy, still complaining about the LCD leader Mothetjoa Metsing's mismanagement of the party.

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