Kelebone Albert Maope (born 1945) is a politician from

Lesotho Lesotho, formally the Kingdom of Lesotho and formerly known as Basutoland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Entirely surrounded by South Africa, it is the largest of only three sovereign enclave and exclave, enclaves in the world, t ...

. He served in the

Basutoland Congress Party The Basutoland Congress Party is a pan-Africanist and left-wing political party in Lesotho. The Basutoland African Congress (BAC) was founded in 1952 by Ntsu Mokhehle and Potlako Leballo. The party was renamed the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP ...

(BCP) and

Lesotho Congress for Democracy The Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) is a political party in Lesotho. In 1997, Prime Minister Ntsu Mokhehle left the Basutoland Congress Party to form with his faction the new Lesotho Congress for Democracy. The new party won the 1998 e ...

(LCD) governments during the 1990s before splitting from the LCD in 2001 to form his own party, the

Lesotho People's Congress The Lesotho People's Congress is a political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, a ...

(LPC).

Political career

As a member of the BCP, Maope served as Attorney General and Minister of Justice under the military regime that ruled Lesotho from 1986 to 1993. He was also Minister of Justice in the BCP government that took office in 1993. On April 14, 1994, he was briefly kidnapped along with three other ministers by soldiers; a fifth minister, Deputy Prime Minister

Selometsi Baholo Selometsi Baholo was the deputy prime minister of Lesotho between 1968 and 1970. He was killed by dissident soldiers on 14 April 1994 in Maseru Maseru is the capital and largest city of Lesotho. It is also the capital of the Maseru District. Lo ...

, was killed in this incident. Maope served as Minister of Justice until he was named Minister of Foreign Affairs in a cabinet reshuffle on July 20, 1995. On February 21, 1998 he was elected Deputy Leader of the new ruling party, the LCD, which had been formed in 1997. He remained in this position until June 1998, when he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation. On July 22, 1999, he became Minister of Finance and Development Planning, while remaining Deputy Prime Minister. In early 2001, Maope was re-elected as Deputy Leader of the LCD without opposition. In July 2001, he was moved from his position as

Minister of Finance A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfolio ...

to that of Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, remaining Deputy Prime Minister. In September 2001, tensions within the LCD were reflected in a statement by Maope, a member of the party's Lesiba faction, alleging that the government was oppressive. Foreign Minister

Tom Thabane Thomas Motsoahae Thabane (born 28 May 1939) is a Mosotho politician who was the fifth Prime Minister of Lesotho from 2012 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2020. He founded the All Basotho Convention (ABC) in 2006 and led the party until 2022. Thabane ...

then publicly insulted Maope. On September 28, Maope resigned from the government, and he formed a new party, the Lesotho People's Congress (LPC), which was registered on October 8. The LPC, with Maope as its leader, gained 27 members of parliament through defections from the LCD. In the May 2002 parliamentary election, Maope won a seat in the Seqonoka constituency; he was the only LPC candidate to win a constituency, although the party gained four other seats through proportional representation."Compensatory Seats Spring a Few Surprises"
, Summary of Events in Lesotho, Volume 9, Number 2, Second Quarter 2002, trc.org.ls.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maope, Kelebone 1945 births Living people Members of the National Assembly (Lesotho) Basutoland Congress Party politicians Lesotho Congress for Democracy politicians Lesotho People's Congress politicians Deputy prime ministers of Lesotho Agriculture ministers of Lesotho Finance ministers of Lesotho Ministers of justice of Lesotho Foreign ministers of Lesotho Permanent representatives of Lesotho to the United Nations