So a new Prime Minister has been sworn in and a new coalition takes power. Unfortunately for Lesotho, it's back to the bad old days of corruption and the same loser Deputy PM who helped precipitate last year's crisis. Unfortunately, when I try to pass judgement, I am reminded of the similarities between the messed up system here and the one back in the states.
The "new" PM, Mosisili, is actually the old PM, who lost power in the previous election when the 3-headed coalition put ABC head Thabane in as the new PM. Thabane and ABC rose in the last election by running against Mosisili/DC's corruption. Metsing, the head of LDC, was made the Deputy PM in the new 3-party coalition and then was promptly brought up on charges of corruption, which led to the LDC-backed military confrontation with the police (ABC-backed), the not-quite-coup, etc.
Here's where it gets twisted. In the new election, ABC actually gained seats - a fair amount, in fact. LDC lost a good many seats. So the election seemed to be a clear repudiation of Metsing, and a desire for ABC to continue rooting out the corruption. Unfortunately, DC stayed about the same, and eventually ended up almost tied with ABC for the number of seats won (after the complicated system they use to award additional representative seats beyond those decided directly in the election). But neither one, again, had enough seats on their own to rule as one party.
So the machinations began to see if ABC or DC could form the coalition to govern. There would be no "grand bargain" to have ABC & DC rule in a coalition together since the primary platform plank for ABC was rooting out DC's corruption. So Metsing/LDC "switched allegiance" to DC, and along with about 6 other minor parties cobbled together the seats necessary to form a government. It's no surprise that the corrupt party was able to "convince" (i.e., bribe) enough other smaller parties to join them - and of course Metsing knew he couldn't partner again with ABC after what happened last year.
Even then, as the coalition was being finalized, and before the formal set up/inauguration, minor parties in the new coalition were grumbling they weren't being given all that was promised (including a spot as Deputy PM over Metsing) and they were threatening to defect to ABC so that THEY could end up forming the ruling coalition. Of course this was just a ploy to make sure the corrupt DC knew if they didn't ladle out some more gravy, they'd be doomed. So voila, yesterday everything came together for the old/new DC, and Mosisili was sworn in once again as PM and Metsing as Deputy PM.
On the plus side, the corruption suit will still go on against Metsing since his ploy to have the suit tossed in court was rejected. Stay tuned!
ANYWAY, as mentioned, when I was looking at the results, reflecting on all the dysfunction, etc., I noticed some interesting/distressing similarities between Lesotho's political drama and that of the U.S. Even though ABC/Thabane got the most votes in the last election, it's DC/Mosisili running the country. What an outrage! Why, it's like when Gore got more votes than Bush and yet Bush was awarded the presidency by a corrupt court thanks to votes from his father's appointees! Or like in 2014 when House Democrats won significantly more total votes, and yet found themselves as the minority party in the House of Representatives - and by a substantial margin. Yum, smells like nepotism and a rotten system.
Also: ABC ran on a platform of supporting the "common man," rooting out corruption and financial greed and recklessness. Their strength was in the north and urban areas, while the corrupt, thieving, DC party that's been rewarding the "haves" got their strength from the southern part of the country, more rural, and less educated. Sound familiar?
Not to mention that when the reformers did manage to take power a few years ago, there was such a pushback from the entrenched, corrupt party that they did everything they could to ensure the new, duly elected party could not govern effectively, blocked everything they could, tried to sue when the new government tried to root out corruption, and then basically ended up shutting down the government. Now I'll leave it to you to guess if here I'm talking about Lesotho or the U.S. (Hint: BOTH!)
Ah, yes, this is why I moved overseas: to experience a different culture!
