Over the past four years, Lesotho has been undergoing a deepening political, economic and security crisis. This has manifested itself in many ways but the following are a few indicators. First, in August 2014 an attempted coup took place which ended up with the Prime Minister fleeing the country and only coming back to the country with a SADC security detail; second, an early election was called upon by SADC with the hope that it would resolve the political and security problem caused by the collapse of the first coalition government Lesotho has had. This did not. On the contrary a new coalition made up of seven political parties was formed after the elections and the security crisis which had existed before became worse. Finally, SADC was forced once again to intervene in Lesotho after the assassination of the former Lesotho Defense Force Commander Lt. General Maaparankoe Mahao by elements of the army and the fleeing of all opposition political leaders. A SADC Commission of Inquiry was established and later reported to the SADC Double Troika, making damning findings which now have to be implemented.

This  was the seventh time the regional body had to intervene in Lesotho. My argument is that in most of its interventions in Lesotho, SADC took half measures with the hope that the unstable member would have learned from the mistakes of the past. These half measures were also a result of misinformation by the successive governments in Lesotho, which at times depended for their survival on an unstable environment. In addition, there has been a serious paucity of analysis on the Lesotho situation. Local and regional analysts have dealt with the issues sporadically and at times opportunistically. This has been Lesotho’s dilemma.

This site, intends to close that gap by providing detailed analysis regularly using the best available scholarship in Lesotho and the region. We intent to create a powerful forum for debate on Lesotho’s present and future. This site will also seek to bring in the emerging scholars and young people to debate and raise critical issues which people of my generation may be missing. It is meant to be a serious site, even though issues which are of concern to our younger people will also be dealt with.

I will welcome critical comments from our readers. The site will however not be used to hurl insults to those readers don’t agree with. It will be site for debate and not for screaming!

Enjoy the ride!

Professor Mafa M. Sejanamane