The Politics of Coalition Formation and Democracy in Lesotho

Abstract

Political parties' coalitions/alliances are almost a permanent feature of pluralist democracies. Although relatively new to the African continent, for they emerged during the third wave of democratisation in the early 1990s in a bid to oust from power different forms of despotic regimes, coalitions are becoming entrenched in Africa's political systems as weapons through which the political elite fights political battles. Lesotho's experience of the phenomenon began in the run-up to the 17 February 2007 snap elections and they are, it seems, more likely to endure. Drawing examples from other countries, which have a longer history of coalitions than Lesotho, this paper contributes to the current debate on the value of this phenomenon and its implications for Lesotho's nascent democracy. Although not a product of a democratic process themselves, for they have been formed by the political elite with no input from their parties' membership, Lesotho's coalitions have been a positive factor to the country's formal democracy rather than its antithesis. They have helped maintain the pre-elections political status quo, hence beneficial to those forming them both within the opposition ranks and the ruling party. Coalition formation in Lesotho, I argue, has been caused, to a large measure, by the office-seeking motives of the political elites and the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system. Acknowledging that coalitions will become part of Lesotho's politics as is the case in other places as the paper will show, I conclude that Lesotho should establish ways and means of regulating them so that they work in ways that preserve rather than undermine the spirit of the hard-fought-for MMP system.

Notes

I use coalitions and alliances interchangeably because, in my view, they are not conceptually and operationally different.

For the development of Lesotho's political parties see, for example, Machobane, L.B.B.J. (1990), Government and Change in Lesotho, 1800–1966: A Study of Political Institutions (Houndmills: Macmillan Press Ltd); Gill, S.J. (1993), A Short History of Lesotho: From the Late Stone age until the 1993 Elections (Morija: Morija Museum and Archives); Bardill, J.E. and Cobbe, J.H. (1985), Lesotho: Dilemmas of Dependence in Southern Africa (London: Westview Press); Khaketla, B.M. (1971), Lesotho 1970: An African Coup under Microscope (London: C. Hurst & Company); Van de Geer, R. and Wallis, M. (1984), Government and Development in Rural Lesotho (Roma: National University of Lesotho).

To avoid any likely confusion when talking about the Parallel and Proportional variants of the mixed system, I will refer to the current model as used in Lesotho as the MMP as it is formally called.

These enterprises include the Lesotho National Development Bank, Lesotho Agricultural Development Bank, Lesotho Airways, Lesotho Telecommunications Corporation, Co-op Lesotho, Lesotho Floor Flour Mills, Plant and Vehicle Pool Services, to name a few.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Motlamelle Anthony Kapa

∗Lecturer, Department of Political & Administrative Studies, National University of Lesotho, PhD Candidate Department of Political and International Studies, Rhodes University, South Africa.