As we start the year 2020: pros and cons

MASERU: As we start off 2020, a year of reckoning for Lesotho, as it is culmination of a long-term vision 2020, there is no single signal that we have reached the climax of the vision. Instead, 2020 is a year that is an exodus of problems, from political to economic, security to judicial. Thizkingdom.com analyses the pros and cons of the year. In particular, it is in this year that this is the time when the envisaged and anxiously-awaited National Reforms Authority (NRA) has to start putting in motion, the roadmap set out by the structures that came before it

Culmination of vision 2020

Twenty years ago, Basotho braced themselves for a bright future, which they envisaged would be ushered in by the then and succeeding leadership of the country. Basotho had pinned their hopes on a leadership that would ensure Lesotho was a stable country living in peace with itself and then same extended to its neighbours.

Social cohesion among Basotho

The intensions and aspirations of the nation contained in the Vision 2020 are such that the leadership would ensure social cohesion among citizens. It was the expectation of Basotho that Lesotho would be turned into a community or society which is cohesive to the extent that the inequalities, exclusions and disparities based on ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, age, disability or any other distinctions which engender divisions distrust and conflict are reduced and/or eliminated in a planned and sustained manner.

Basotho's active participation in economic activity

It was expected that Basotho as a nation and citizens would be active participants working together for the attainment of shared goals designed and agreed upon in 2000 which would improve the living conditions for all. Social cohesion was expected, especially that Vision 2020 was crafted at a time when Lesotho was coming from a painful episode of 1998 post-election political upheavals. It states in no uncertain terms this nation's vision thus: "By the year 2020 Lesotho shall be a stable democracy, a united and prosperous nation at peace with itself and its neighbours....." However, 20 years on, Basotho are a divided nation, socially, economically and most importantly, politically.

Disunity among Basotho orchestrated by their own leaders

The leadership did the inverse of what Vision 2020 was forecasting. They embarked on a crusade to politically divide Basotho, which has had adverse implications on social cohesion among citizens. Most political parties are divided right down and they all have a possibility of a splinter group being formed from the main political party. The challenge is not at the grassroots, but lies at the top of the parties as the central issue behind the divisions is jostling for power.