Mohlabi Tsekoa asserted that the Court of Appeal has a jurisdiction to hear the issue of the NIP party lists as this is a pre-election issue. He also indicated that according to the law, the court does not have jurisdiction on any disputes pertaining to disputes resulting from the election process. That only the High Court has jurisdiction over such matters.
The lady, whose name I did not get, indicated that over the past few days and weeks the issue of "ho noa hoa NIP" has been discussed in public fora and the opposition has taken a clear stance, to the extent that they called for a stay away from the parliamentary floor, and that it is surprising that the government is only responding today. Her basic tenet was because of their failure to respond and engage the opposition we, the public, have been allowed to make up our minds about the issues under dispute without sufficient information, and that it is a little late to appeal to us to not to heed the call to stay away.
In my mind, Tsekoa's argument, however technically correct is moot since the issue of the party list has direct bearing on the outcome of the elections. If the decision of the high court was not appealed and the outcome of the elections had remained the same Mosisili would have been unable to :
- choose at least three members of his cabinet from within the ranks of parliament as they would not have made it to parliament
- necessarily select the same Senators as the composition of the Council of State may have been different (at least two ministers are affected)
The lady who spoke about the LCD's silence on the NIP issue touched on another of my pain points, we have an extremely uncommunicative government, they do not talk to us, they do not engage us, surprisingly they are aware that they lost "our" vote, that is, the vote of the urban dwellers. Yet, instead of making amends, instead of reaching out and trying to ensure that we understand their thinking and thus can defend it they have kept quiet at best, and have possibly become hostile and petty. Their, silence and arrogance has caused us to mistrust them more and more and as I indicated in a prior article, the opposition's communication machinery is working effectively, the government would do well to learn from them.
Today's mass stay-away could have been easily averted if the government had engaged the taxi owners, if taxis were running people would have gone to work. The only thing needed to get taxis running is to persuade the owners that they should run their taxis, instead government has indicated how they would undermine the industry by providing alternatives to taxis, why would the taxi industry prop-up a government that undermines them?
4 comments:
There is one flaw in your argument - if Ntate Manyeli had indeed won his case before the elections, NIP would not have 21 seats in parliament since it is a well known fact that they got those 21 seats because of their alliance with LCD.
LCD would have most probably then entered into an alliance with another party just as ABC has an alliance with LWP and in that way secured seats via the PR vote. This, however, is a moot point since this scenario didn't materialise.
If Ntate Tsekoa's assertion is technically correct and will stand up to a legal test, then the opposition has a duty to respect the Appeal Court ruling otherwise we risk becoming victims of leaders who have no respect for the judicial process.
If the Court of Appeal didn't have jurisdiction over this pre-election issue then we can only arrive at a solution through protracted negotiation since there is no precedent for handling such an issue - ultimatums and stay-aways only serve to further antagonise and alienate the people who are in a position to address the issues that are being raised and we risk creating a situation that is far worse than that which we are faced with - out of the frying pan and into the proverbial fire.
When one is outside the country, it is really nice to get someone who paints the picture for us in a none biased manner. Thanks for your effort.
I do agree that communication goes a long way and the failure of our goverment to communicate with us will alianate us the urban dwellers. But if indeed their lack of communication is related to their arrogance then that might be something worth celebrating since 'pride comes before a fall'! So, may their fall come soon if truly they think threatning the taxi men and ordinary people like ourselves is a way to build a nation!!!!!!
Tau e Tona,
All of us have a duty to respect the courts of all, the opposition and government must be exemplary in this regard. At issue here is the matter of jurisdiction, I had hoped that some of my lawyer friends would enlighten me. I have now resolved to gain access to the court documents so that I can make up my own mind, however, the normal everyday pressure always get in the way.
I have agreed with you before and do so again a stay-away is not the solution, but in retrospect has been an amazing demonstration of power. Whether, this is a muscle that should have been flexed is a different debate. BTW, I did respond to you on topix.net please see the Independecy ea IEC thread.
I am not sure that I deserver the tag "unbiased" I, like all Basotho, have my own biases, I am merely trying to present issues as I see them, I did not specifically set out to offer an unbiased view. Thank you for the vote of confidence.
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