The Basutoland Progressive Association, founded in 1907 by several resolute commoners including Rev. Crammer Sebeta and Simon Phamotse, was the first organization to attain real permanence and a significant following Its ranks were filled primarily by teachers, evangelists, writers, traders, clerical workers in the colonial civil service, and other laymen sharing portions of a common educational experience, more or less committed to the French Protestant Mission (PEMS). Divided on future objectives, the BPA failed to pass I on a coherent political legacy to the diverse movements which inherited fragments of its membership during the 1950s. By contrast, Lekhotia la Bafo was the more authentic progenitor of radical ideology and militant political organization in Basutoland. It never gained a broad national following and became well-established only in the vicinity of Mapoteng where it had been founded by Josiel Lefela in 1919. Lekhotia la Bafo might be identified as a party of ‘tribal renaissance’. Ref., notes
