We’ll be back, says Machesetsa

“We are in a situation where the army has taken over. They are threatening judges, threatening the masses. And the prime minister is quiet.”

He was referring to media reports that said deputy army commander, Major General Matela Matobakele, had threatened lawyers and judges who “protect” violent gangsters.

But in a statement issued this week, the government has rejected the claim saying Maj Gen Matobakele was quoted out of context and that he had never threatened to harm lawyers and judges.

Mofomobe says he would have done things differently and much more effectively if the BNP had won the elections and if he had been elected prime minister.

He would empower the police to fight crime.

He would launch an aggressive investment drive to ensure Lesotho produces enough food to feed itself.

“It is one area I would have addressed differently from how the prime minister is doing things,” he says.

“His (Matekane’s) approach to tackling joblessness is not working. Those who are rich are getting richer while the poor are remaining poor. How do you facilitate loans for MPs to acquire tractors and the government then hires the tractors from the same MPs?”

“I would dump that approach and would provide loans to Basotho so that they can go to the fields and produce food.”

He says his government would embark on a massive industrialisation drive, tweaking what he calls the “Leabua Jonathan blueprint”.

“That BNP blueprint is the only blueprint that took us out of poverty. We used to export asparagus to the European market. We need to revive those old connections. We used to export beans to Mozambique. We used to produce Grade A beef here at the abattoir. If we resuscitate that old model, then all our problems would be solved,” he says.

Yet in seeking to highlight the BNP achievements, Mofomobe has often riled his critics who say the party has remained trapped in the past and that it is a party that has refused to move on from the past. And whenever it wants to market itself, it speaks of that old golden past under Chief Jonathan.

They say the BNP has been part of coalition governments in Lesotho since 2012 and had ample time to implement the same “Leabua blueprint” that it continues to crow about.

Mofomobe says such critics are being disingenuous and that they fail to appreciate the limitations of working in a coalition government where it was a junior partner.

“When you are a junior partner, you are hardly heard,” he says.

“Ninety percent of the projects that are implemented in a coalition government are that of a senior partner. Only a few ideas of the junior partner are accepted and implemented.”

If we had been given a few strategic ministries where we would wield real power, the people could have seen some real change, Mofomobe says.

“We were never allocated key ministries such as trade, industry or agriculture. We were never given that opportunity.”

Sometime in May last year, a journalist with a private radio station, Ralikonelo Joki, was shot and killed as he left his office premises in Maseru.

In an explosive affidavit filed by the National State Security Director General, Pheello Ralenkoane, the spy boss said he suspected that Mofomobe was “involved” in the murder of Joki and that his phones could provide important details to prove his involvement.

It was a shocking claim by the spy agency.

Did that claim unnerve Mofomobe?

“What the NSS was doing was to put a bounty on my head,” he says.

“The only way to get rid of me was to say I was involved in Joki’s murder. The people who were related to Joki, the people he had gone to initiation school with, we know how they behave. They would then target me for a revenge kill,” he says.

“That is exactly what they wanted to do. Unfortunately, I was a step ahead of their plan.”

A few days after that disclosure, suspects appeared in court charged with Joki’s killing. Mofomobe was not part of the suspects.

Despite the squabbles in the BNP, Mofomobe says the party remains in good health. In fact, he claims that even those that had crossed to the RFP are beginning to trek back to the BNP which is their political home.

“They are coming back home,” he says.

“They have accepted that the RFP has nothing to offer. So if we go for snap elections, taking into consideration that factor, and that I have raised in parliament pertinent matters of public interest, we would certainly do much better than we did in 2022.”