From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Political party in Lesotho
The
Communist Party of Lesotho
(
Mokhatio oa Makomonisi a Lesotho
) is a
communist party
in
Lesotho
, founded on May 5, 1962. The founding secretary of the party was John Motloheloa. Other early leaders of the party included Mokhafisi Kena and Sefali Malefane. Edward Mofutsanyana was a member of the
Communist Party of South Africa
Central Committee
(disbanded 1950) but had no part in the Lesotho party. Joe Matthews of the South African Communist Party (founded 1953) financed the launch of the Lesotho party but later supported the ANC-allied
Marematlou Freedom Party
. The
South African Communist Party
, the
Hungarian Socialist Workers Party
and
Walter Ulbricht
of the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
sent greetings on the occasion of the founding of the party. The party began publishing
Mosebetsi
.
[1]
During the 1960s, the party split into Soviet-allied (Kena, Malefane, Mtji, and Ms Hoohlo) and Chinese-allied (Motloholoa, T. Leanya, and T. Nqojane) factions. In the 1970 election, its two Moscow-allied candidates at Thaba Chitja (Kena) and Tsoelike (Malefane) received 25 and 18 votes respectively. The party was officially banned in February 1970, but went underground and continued its activities. After the 1986 coup, its leader, Sefali Malefane, a university lecturer in Economics, was made a minister in Major-General
Justin Lekhanya
's regime. The party was made legal again in 1991.
[2]
After the fall of
apartheid
rule in neighbouring
South Africa
, the party advocated union with South Africa.
[3]
The party ceased the publication of its newspaper,
Mafube
, in 1997.
[4]
The party's current leader is Manny Stevenson.
[5]
References
[
edit
]
|
---|
Parliamentary
| |
---|
Extraparliamentary
| |
---|
Inactive
| |
---|
|