MUCKRAKER understands that there are many still inconsolable about their loss in the election.
The wounds are probably still festering, especially for those unceremoniously yanked off the feeding trough. Nothing is as painful as grieving on an empty belly.
What however boggles Muckraker’s mind is the delirious reaction of some congress leaders.
Instead of weeping in private corners they have setup camp at the marketplace to bellow.

Size Two is leading the heartbroken battalion that has now suspended all decorum befitting of its stature.
They have now dispatched a long and grumpy missive to SADC, spectacularly alleging that the election was rigged.

They allege that there was secret voter registration, vote buying, illegal voters and illegal transfer of voters from constituencies.
This is in addition to the bit about people being allowed to vote twice because indelible ink had run out.

The most outrageous one is that South Africans were shipped into Lesotho to vote. Those who dismiss these allegations as sour grapes are likely to be branded as zealots of the parties now in this 4×4 government.

That need not be the case because some things are so blatantly poisonous to swallow.
There is a truckload of curious things about the letter.

First, it starts with a sober preamble in which the congress parties say they accept the election result as “free and fair”.
That admission should have closed the matter because anything raised thereafter is only a side issue that will not change the fact that the election was free and fair.
In other words, the congress parties are complaining about the dessert and not the main course. The tummy is already full.
Second, the election could not be described as free and fair in light of what the shenanigans the congress parties allege.

That they make a battery of incidences of blatant rigging but still proclaim the election to be free and fair shows that they are not thinking straight.
They too are not convinced that they have a strong case. It makes them come across as sore losers desperate for attention.

Third, the congress parties do not seem to have an idea as to what they want done. They don’t suggest another election, perhaps, because they know it will not change much.
Fourth, this is probably the only time, since democracy arrived in Africa, that an incumbent government is accusing the opposition of rigging an election. Elsewhere it is the governments that are accused of stealing elections.
Yet in Lesotho we are being persuaded, unconvincingly so, to believe that the opposition had the means to nick votes.

Apart from just listing unsubstantiated allegations, the letter does not provide much evidence as to how this could have happened. It does not say there was any collusion between the opposition and the electoral commission.
Muckraker has questions of her own which she things SADC, if there are people with some matter in their heads in there, should ask the congress parties when it replies. Where was the government when this alleged chicanery was happening?

Since the letter does not say who did the thieving, are we to assume that the congress parties were also beneficiaries of stolen votes?
What evidence is there to suggest that those who voted more than once where opposition supporters? If indeed there was such rampant rigging how come Size Two and his people have not filed a complaint with the IEC and approached the court?

What the hell is the purpose of bolting to SADC with allegations that can be investigated internally? What can SADC do if it finds that there is even a particle of substance in the allegations?
Muckraker will tell you without blinking that no one in the congress movement will answer those questions.
That’s because Size Two and his comrades are not seeking redress but merely throwing a cat among the pigeons.
For as long as there are some fantastic conspiracies on which to clutch Size Two and his supporters are not going to walk away hands over head.
There is something about political conspiracies that makes them alluring.

Apart from helping soothe the pain they assist in dispersing blame for failure. Size Two and his people genuinely want to believe that this defeat had nothing to do with their poor planning and miscalculations.

To them it is inconceivable that voters would have rejected parties that gave them democracy, free primary school education, old age pensions and the school feeding programme.
So according to their narrative the people voted for the congress parties but their votes disappeared. Ideas don’t come this warped.

That letter is oozing with hypocrisy and irony.
It’s ironic that Size Two is writing such a humble letter to SADC when a few weeks ago he penned a bile-laced one to the same bloc. How times change.
One week you are haranguing SADC and the next you are seeking comfort in its arms. This is the same Size Two who said SADC was interfering in Lesotho’s internal affairs.
He is the one who reminded his then colleagues that Lesotho was not SADC’s playground. This is not the SADC we founded, he thundered.
It was one of the most belligerent letters Muckraker has seen in her years as a journalist.

Even in her days as a student activist Muckraker would not have added her name to such a letter. In the end Size Two came across as a cantankerous old man balking under pressure.
Muckraker finds it unbelievable that the man who wrote that letter is the holder of the pen that wrote the latest one.
In the latest one Size Two is grovelling.

As she read the letter Muckraker’s mind raced back to the 1994 hit song by Boyz II Men.
Can we go back to the days our love was strong?/ Can you tell me how a perfect love goes wrong? /Can somebody tell me how you get things back the way they used to be?/ Oh, God, give me the reason, I’m down on bended knees/I’ll never walk again until you come back to me, I’m down on bended knees.
It’s a love song but it works here too. SADC should tell Size Two to keep kneeling.

It will be remiss of Muckraker if she does not mention the scandalous event that happened at Uncle Tom’s inauguration.
A tractor was hired to carry a mock coffin draped in congress colours. The spectacle was meant to rile the congress supporters who had wisely stayed away from the stadium.
So without the congress supporters to mock it became futile to drag that thing around the stadium.

They were parading it for themselves and the diplomats attending the inauguration. We can say all we want about that circus but the truth is that it was below the belt.
Those who dragged that mock coffin were showing the world that even in victory they are incapable of humility.

You judge a people not by what they do as losers but as victors. There were a thousand other ways with which to mock the congress supporters.
The broader import of that spectacle is that it goes a long way to prove that we are immature and shallow.
We showed the world that we are beyond redemption as a country. The joke is on the country and not the congress parties.