as Masoetsa sees dim future and accuse Ntsekele of advocating split The incoming All Basotho Convention (ABC) Publicity Secretary, Montoeli Masoetsa, said his faction forsake talks because the leader, Thomas Thabane, was absent and he accuses the outgoing secretary general, Samonyane Ntsekele, of advocating for party split. However, Ntsekele denied every calling for breaking of the party.

The two factions, according to sources, could not agree on the agenda items and the participants of the meeting. Ntsekele was responding to allegations that in one meeting whose purpose was to bring together two sides of the party which are at loggerheads he said instead of handing over the office keys to the new National Executive Committee (NEC) the party would rather split.

“Those are not my words, I would not want the party split while I am at the same time working towards its unity,” Ntsekele said. Responding to whether or not the talks have reached a deadlock, Ntsekele said all he knew was that the two sides were yet to meet with the party leader on Tuesday next week and that they have been instructed not to talk about the matter on media.

The ABC leader, Dr. Thabane and Professor Nqosa Mahao, who was elected deputy leader at a tormented party’s elective conference in February, had on several times met and had talks which were expected to bring a solution to the ongoing friction between the incoming and outgoing national executive
committees.

The meetings are reported to have not been fruitful as the two factions are still at loggerheads and tension is escalating, leaving those involved with more fury to continue with the battle.

Giving the results of the recent meeting Masoetsa says the talks have reached a deadlock because last week Wednesday they were called to meet with the leader and some of the party’s outgoing NEC but upon arrival the leader left them and instructed that they deal with the issues on the table and
call him if there was any problem.

“So we decided to leave because Prof. Mahao was ready to sitwith all of us but particularly the leader and we realised there was no point in us getting into negotiations without the party leader, especially because in the first place the negotiations were between the leader and his deputy leader only,” he says.

He says his faction “had the office keys as the only item on the agenda while the old NEC had three items; the elective conference, pending court case and constituency rallies, but they resolved to leave out the first two and discuss the rallies.”

According to Masoetsa “it was when we met with Mr. Ntsekele and three applicants to the court case that we were told to stop with the rallies and follow the leader to his rallies; but now our argument was that the constitution states that constituency rallies will be held immediately after the elective conference to report back to the membership and when we are invited by party structures to report we are not going to stop.”

Masoetsa also accused Ntsekele to have been reported to have mentioned on April ‘furiously’ that the party might as well split before he could hand over the ABC office keys to the new NEC.

Lena