Have we arrived at “Fortress” democracy?

NTHAKENG PHEELLO SELINYANE

When the Lesotho Paramilitary Force overthrew Dr Leabua Jonathan in January 1986, they named his Prime Minister’s Office Complex “Qhobosheaneng” – The Fortress. They hardly imagined that 40 years later, new occupants would take this too literally.

These new occupants now use the place as a stronghold for escaping the reach of the toiling masses on whose blood and sweat they thrived.

Last week, I listened to a radio interview with a mixture of shock, bewilderment, and amusement. The account came from textile workers’ union leaders detailing their ordeal at the hands of public servants in the Office of the Prime Minister. These servants effectively turned the unionists away.

The unionists had sought an appointment to bring a petition to the head of government.

They were beseeching him and his government to demonstrate urgency in handling the prospective termination of AGOA, due this month (September 2025), unless an extraordinary intervention swooped in.

I had heard a similar rendition on radio from a representative of petitioners against a perceivably unconscionable electricity price increase. They also protested the “heartless” ignorance of consumer objections by the responsible regulatory authority.

Here, I was reminded of a line in Ola Rotimi’s drama, ‘The Gods are not to blame’.

A chief chastises the insubordination of a villager by saying, “a butterfly thinks himself a bird.” Indeed, here a butterfly was thinking himself a bird. It is simply not the role of public servants to decide whether to allow or prohibit electors from seeing their elected representatives.

This is especially true once those representatives are in office, discharging the mandate for which they were elected.

This simply doesn’t happen anywhere in the world. It has never happened in this country before now. It didn’t happen even under the military regime of 1986 to 1993, which gave the Office Complex its “fortress” name and putatively answered to no-one.

At the very least, this is an abdication of duty. The elected people’s representatives are failing their responsibility of accountability to their senders. It is also a usurpation of political authority by the servants.

Its fullest implication is a playful erosion of our national democracy. Ideally, the delegate should do the bidding of the represented and explain himself accordingly. This action also shreds the dignity of our people. They are routinely laughed at as “barking at the moon” – to borrow the spine-chilling words of a former prime minister – whenever they voice their pains.

They are forced to bring themselves to the face of their elected representatives, only to be turned away like irritating flies by a clique of flippant civil servants.

In the times of representative democracy we live in, the next most important principle after electivity is accountability to the electors. In between them lies loyalty to the preference and conscience of the electors.

The petitioners report a new police precondition.

They say they must bring a written statement of the “visited” person’s willingness and availability to receive the marchers. Only then will the police issue a permit for a procession.

This is completely outside the law. It is found nowhere in the published regulations for these events.

Incidentally, this happens under the police leadership of a returning veteran, Advocate Borotho Matsoso.

He had since gone on to serve a full term as Director General of the DCEO. This occurs in a context where most processions are protests against corruption or its consequent actions.

That reality simply cannot be lost on him.

This is also the same police force which banded with the army. In October 2023, they issued a public statement threatening Parliamentarians. Their crime was daring to moot changing the current prime minister for perceived non-accountability or weak government supervision.

The tragic part of this new demon in our midst is that it didn’t come to pass from ignorance. Its continuance shows it is not merely a careless mistake, however repugnant it appears. The Chief of Staff in the Office of the Prime Minister, Comrade Sofonea Shale, intermittently appears on radio to explain away their attitude.

He came here from 30 years of campaigning for the right to participate in government.

This included staging petitions, like recently petitioning Parliament against the irregular passage of the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution (the “Kotopo” law on preserving Parliament during a Vote of No-Confidence) and the Human Rights Commission Bill of the time. He also mediated policy dialogue deadlocks between government and sectors like school teachers’ associations and the wool and mohair growers’ association.

Both of these groups also descended on Maseru with mass petition processions – the very type he is effectively prohibiting today.
His maiden usurpation of the prime minister’s prerogative was his letter to the leader of the Basotho National Party, Machesetsa Mofomobe. This was in response to the latter’s letter complaining against the army’s unleashing on communities, which included maiming and murder of defenceless citizens.

He didn’t even pretend to be acting on the instruction of the prime minister, thus interfering in his principal’s communication with his peers. From “intercepting” letters, he went full force to barricading the Complex gates.

Thus, Comrade Sofonea Shale has always known very well why citizen groups resolve to make a mass appearance before the head of government. In his current position, he could only have known the evolution and entire career of the contentious matter. He must be aware of its seeming intractability and the possible intransigence of the ministries involved.

Early this week, a radio news bulletin said he phoned a representative of a Semonkong community. He promised they would soon get a response from the prime minister regarding intermittent electricity blackouts in their area. They had said this issue received no positive attention in relevant government sectors.
It might be argued that the servants are put in an unenviable position. They are instructed to be a buffer between citizens and their envoys in government, thus fending off citizens like the emperor’s warriors outside the castle. But it is common cause that it is not for senior public servants to play lapdog or hunter’s dog, or simply be the master’s voice.

Even the interlocutors and protestants themselves might find some tolerable degree of spinning acceptable.

On the contrary, senior public servants are supposed to be the conscience of their principals. This reminds me of a 1993 TV interview. It stated that US president, Ronald Reagan, said he would not have gone down the road of the wasteful Star Wars programme if the chief physicist had advised against it. The chief physicist, in turn, said he knew it was futile but did not want to disappoint the president by saying so.

The role of senior public officers is to respectfully, wisely, suggestively, humbly, but insistently urge their principals towards consistent observance of their constitutional duty and oath of office. This includes, not least, the duty of public accountability.

For Comrade Shale and company, this becomes even more urgent, compelling, and crucial. This is due to the non-political nature of the politicians whose corridors of power he has to wake up to every day.

These politicians never cared to make even an inkling of acquaintance with public affairs before now, as evidenced by their repeatedly mouthed confessions.

Indeed, it was the self-proclaimed purity of these new political entrants – supposedly untainted by decades-long dross of sleaze and stench of rot – that triggered an unprecedented migration. NGO honchos moved into the trenches of the state, abandoning their erstwhile refereeing role and all its associated values.

As the high priests of governance, they were supposed to christen and “nurture” these self-confessed novice newcomers. However, history might judge them harshly. It may see them as having opportunistically ridden on the supposed spotlessness of these “missionaries.”

They passed themselves off as having no association with discredited partisan politics, only to draw the newcomers into their own brand of decadence.

So the problem is not systemic; it doesn’t call for reforms. It is not a lack of standards or awareness thereof. It is a simple attitudinal fixation. We are married to a conviction that as long as we remain within this barren patch of land, we are in a pigsty. Here, we can throw all care to the wind and wallow in the mud to our heart’s desire.

We can gratify our gluttony for all earthly pursuits, far from the clutches of universal values’ requirements.

This explains why you can have a government of entrepreneurs. They swear to run the country like a thriving business and trade on the ticket of meritocracy.

They brag that “Lesotho shall never be the same.”

Yet, they have grave challenges ministering to the mundane needs of the citizenry. They cannot sincerely explain themselves for the same failings.

They end up being sought out like a lost toddler or hunted like a beast of the wild. They are kept behind fortress walls against the very citizens who are the source of their proud mandate.
So long folks.