An initiative of the National Academy of Public Administration, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, Princeton University Oral History Program Series: Elections Interview no.: M5 Interviewee: Limakatso Mokhothu Interviewer: Amy Mawson Date of Interview: February 1, 2010 Location: Maseru, Lesotho Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544 USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Election Oral History Program Interview number: M-5 ______________________________________________________________________ MAWSON: My name is Amy Mawson, and I’m here interviewing the Chairperson of the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission) in Lesotho named (Limakatso) Mokhothu, if I have the pronunciation right, I hope. First of all, thank you very much indeed for agreeing to this interview. I know you are very busy, so it really means a lot to us to have you use some of your time. Maybe I could start off just by asking you how you got involved in the IEC, what your first job was, and what you are currently doing at the IEC. MOKHOTHU: I came to the IEC in 2003 as a commissioner, and maybe it’s worthwhile for me to briefly explain how commissioners are brought into the IEC. It’s a political appointment, so it doesn’t necessarily look for skills or knowledge in election management, because the main issue is just to give the political clout. So the politicians nominate people or you can self-nominate, but then there’s a screening process. Fortunately, I was nominated. I didn’t have to self-nominate, so I’m happy for that. When that screening is done, then the state body that advises the king is called, the Council of State. When the politicians who were doing the screening are done with the names that they think are suitable for the job, then it goes to the Council of State who advise the king. Then the king finally makes his appointment. So I joined in 2003 as a commissioner. MAWSON: And you were one of three commissioners. Is that right? MOKHOTHU: I am one of the three commissioners. Yes. Our commission is made up of three commissioners. And when we talk about the commission in Lesotho, we are mainly talking about the commissioners, not the secretariat. Of course, below us, there’s a number of people at the headquarters level, district level and constituency level. MAWSON: When did you become chairperson? MOKHOTHU: I became chairperson a year and a half ago. MAWSON: OK, so that would be in 2008? MOKHOTHU: I forget the date. I should have checked that. All I know is that I always count. I’m now a year and a half in that position. MAWSON: Can I ask you, then: you were working as a commissioner then for the 2007 elections. So maybe you could tell me a little bit about when you were preparing for these elections? When the election was called, what were the main challenges that you were thinking about in preparing for these elections? What was on your radar when you started preparing for the elections that you thought, “I really have to be careful about this aspect or that aspect?” MOKHOTHU: I’m sure, from your readings trying to learn about Lesotho, you know that we have cycles of violence around elections. So the electoral commission is always faced with, will the election be peaceful? The 2002 election, I happened to know about it because of course I was here. But in the role I was playing then, I was also somehow not very far from the electoral process, though I was not in the IEC. So I also know about that. The elections in 2002 were good in that they were very peaceful. I think they were peaceful because for the first time the country had adopted the mixed member proportional (MMP) system, which was hoped to be inclusive in terms of 2 Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Election Oral History Program Interview number: M-5 ______________________________________________________________________ bringing more political parties into the National Assembly. So that was achieved. Because it was new, because it brought hope, this is my feeling. It wasn’t scrutinized that much, so everything went as expected, and it brought a peaceful environment. That brings me to 2007. 2007 was the second time that the new model was used. So as far as I’m concerned, it is still a new model that will face issues around the fact that it is new. I think because now it was being applied for the second time, people were now wearing clearer glasses in terms of looking at the election itself. But in terms of looking at the context, 2007 was confronted with a snap election. I know people who say an electoral management body should always be ready to run an election any time, but for us it was the first time that we were slapped with a snap election. That caught us by surprise and definitely affected our plans. We already had plans around running the 2007 election, but the snap election came six months early. That brought confusion in terms of how we were going to run the elections. So that was the first challenge. We had to now run a snap election as a commission. The second challenge is always this issue around, will it be a peaceful or a conflictual election? The history here is that all the phases of the electoral process are OK. The trouble comes when the results are announced. It becomes a challenge, because we haven’t really come up with a strategy of how to be preemptive in terms of when you already know that the outcome may create physical violence. So I think we need to have a strategy around that, but we don’t have one as yet. In spite of that knowledge, in spite of a snap election, we had to abide by the constitutional requirement. Once the parliament has been dissolved, the IEC has to run an election within three months, and we are not consulted. There is no provision that says, “IEC, are you ready or not?” You just have to deliver once the parliament is dissolved. So we had to deliver the election. MAWSON: The parliament was dissolved in November 2006. MOKHOTHU: Yes, yes. MAWSON: So the election date was set for February. MOKHOTHU: February, yes. Once we were running with the elections, there are always issues around the voters’ list. Because our registration is continuous, there aren’t so many issues. I think the culture of the people here is to do things at the last minute. We were overwhelmed with the number of new registrants. We had to go to this election with identity cards that did not have pictures. We were faced with many people—according to our law the ID must have a picture. MAWSON: This is the voter cards? MOKHOTHU: The voter card, yes. So already if there’s no card, that means there’s deficiency. So that phase confronted us as well. Because of the political history, there was an agreement that anybody who doesn’t appear on the voters’ list should not vote. So when we were about a week to the election date, many people suddenly wanted to go and vote, and they didn’t appear on the voters’ list. That is as a result of people who—as I said, they are never very enthusiastic well ahead of the election. But when the election 3 Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Election Oral History Program Interview number: M-5 ______________________________________________________________________ date comes closer, they become very enthusiastic. I’m saying that because according to our law, the IEC has to publish a provisional list of the voters. So if people were very keen and serious about checking their names during this period when the provisional list is displayed, they would be in a position to correct their names so that it is corrected when we issue a final list, but they don’t do that. So it’s only when they get to the polling center that their name doesn’t appear on the voters list that then they want to vote. That was a major hassle as well, a major challenge for us. MAWSON: So the voters’ list was first published on Christmas Day in 2006. Is that right? MOKHOTHU: No, we have to correct that. Since registration is continuous, there is always a voters’ list, but the legal one, in terms of the three-month legal period, yes, it was issued around Christmas time. That is as a result of this snap election. We fell into that period because we had to fall within three months. MAWSON: So could you tell me what some of the problems were that emerged around the time when that voters’ list for the elections was published on Christmas Day? MOKHOTHU: Not any major incidents. The incidents came on voting day because people came to—if they go to, those at least who are in Maseru, if they go to a voting station and they find out they cannot vote, then they come to the office or they phone. So the phone was ringing the whole day.