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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | Chieftainship and decentralization in Lesotho: problems of reconciliation |
| Author: | Kapa, M.A. |
| Year: | 2005 |
| Periodical: | Lesotho Law Journal: A Journal of Law and Development |
| Volume: | 15 |
| Issue: | 1 |
| Pages: | 193-220 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | Southern Africa Lesotho |
| Subjects: | local government decentralization traditional rulers chieftaincy |
| Abstract: | The Lesotho Congress for Democracy government is poised to decentralize Lesotho's administration by establishing an elective local government, in line with the country's Constitution, the Local Government Act 1997, and the Local Government Elections Act 1998 as amended in 2004. The proposed local government scheme, however, faces formidable challenges of providing the requisite infrastructure, forging a partnership between the hereditary chiefs who are not elective and elected local authorities, and redefining the powers, roles and functions of the chiefs and ensuring a continued role for them in the new political dispensation. This assumes that traditional political institutions such as Lesotho's chieftainship have a role in modern liberal democratic systems. Drawing on examples from other countries in the southern African subregion, the author argues that traditional political institutions still have a place in democratic systems and that the two can co-exist in a mutually supportive way. He further argues that Lesotho's chieftainship, comprising as it does individual administrative units in different geographic areas dispersed throughout the country, is elemental to the process of administrative decentralization envisaged by the authorities. Bibliogr., ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |