Three senior officials of the All Basotho Convention’s National Executive Committee resigned within hours of each other, a week after the party’s Secretary General also stepped down.
Monday, 21 September 2026, may well be remembered as one of the most consequential days in the history of Lesotho’s All Basotho Convention (ABC). For a party that once appeared almost immovable, a party that has survived two decades and at one point secured the second-highest number of votes in Lesotho’s democratic history, after the Basotho Congress Party, the events of this Monday carry extraordinary weight.
Three NEC members quit in a single day
In the space of a single day, three senior members of the ABC’s National Executive Committee resigned.
They were Deputy Leader Samonyane Ntsekele, Deputy Chairman Lebakeng Mpana, and Deputy Secretary General Tšolo Khechane.
Political parties are rarely undone by the moment someone finally walks out.
Three senior figures. One day.
And this was not an isolated development.
Just last week, the party’s Secretary General, Thebe Mokoatle, also resigned.
Taken together, the departures represent an extraordinary shake-up at the very top of a party that has occupied a significant place in Lesotho’s political landscape for the past 20 years.
The numbers alone tell a story. In little more than a week, the ABC has lost its Secretary General, Deputy Leader, Deputy Chairman and Deputy Secretary General.
A pattern that built quietly before it broke
Political parties do not usually reach such moments overnight. They fray quietly. Trust disappears in small increments. Internal disagreements deepen. Warnings are dismissed. Conversations that should happen in boardrooms and conference rooms move elsewhere. Eventually, the political structure that once looked solid begins to reveal its cracks.
Perhaps that is the more important story behind this extraordinary sequence of resignations.
The uncomfortable question facing ABC
The question historians may one day ask is not simply why these leaders resigned. It is whether any of this could have been avoided.
Was this the inevitable consequence of political forces that had been building inside the ABC, or was there a point at which different decisions, different leadership and perhaps a little more political wisdom could have prevented the rupture?
That question may prove far more uncomfortable than the resignations themselves.
Because political parties are rarely undone by the moment someone finally walks out. The decisive damage is often done much earlier, when political leaders fail to recognise that something is already breaking.
And so, 21 September 2026 may enter the ABC’s history not merely as the day three NEC members resigned, but as the day the party was confronted with a question from which it cannot easily walk away: how did it get here?
ABC NEC resignations, September 2026
NamePositionDate of resignation
Thebe MokoatleSecretary GeneralWeek of 14 September 2026
Samonyane NtsekeleDeputy Leader21 September 2026
Lebakeng MpanaDeputy Chairman21 September 2026
Tšolo KhechaneDeputy Secretary General21 September 2026
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