William Boot
Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s intervention this week in Lesotho’s election crisis may prove too little, too late to head off disaster in the beleaguered kingdom.
Mbeki, Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfred Nzo and Minister of Defence Joe Modise secured agreement from both the governing Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and the country’s major opposition parties to hand over their increasingly bitter election dispute to the adjudication of South Africa and its Southern African Development Community (SADC) allies.
They will look into claims of election rigging by opposition parties as well as “other matters relating to the electoral process”.
The country’s three major opposition parties – the Basotho National Party, the Basotholand Congress Party and the Maramatlou Freedom Party – claim the general elections on May 23 were rigged in favour of the LCD which, in the official result, recorded victory in 79 of Lesotho’s 80 voting districts.
But the adjudication could be too late as Lesotho teeters ever closer to the brink of total disaster. A resolute group of opposition protesters continues to swell outside the royal palace in Maseru, more than a week after they first marched there to demand that their monarch, King Letsie III, intervene to resolve the crisis.
But Letsie’s hands are tied by a Constitution and personal undertakings made before his coronation. These preclude him from any involvement in the politics of the day, unless his authority is invoked under the Constitution.
To date no such call has been made, though at the time of going to press Lesotho’s council of senior traditional chiefs was reportedly meeting to pass a resolution calling for Letsie to use his constitutional authority to dissolve the government and take control of the country until new elections can be held.
Each day the temperature rises. On more than one occasion soldiers have used water cannons and even stun grenades in an attempt to force the protesters to go home. Earlier this week an unnamed government official was brutally killed after opening fire on a group of opposition supporters at the border with South Africa.
Increasingly reports are filtering through of armed bands of government supporters, moving around the countryside intimidating opposition protesters with seeming impunity.
On Wednesday a potentially catastrophic stand-off developed when soldiers loyal to the government tried to enforce dispersal orders from Royal Lesotho Defence Force chief Lieutenant Colonel Makhula Mosakeng. But a second contingent of soldiers aimed their weapons threateningly at their colleagues, who then backed off.
The incident points to mounting tensions inside the security forces between factions loyal to the government and those on the side of the opposition. – tensions that could spill over into outright conflict.
One such observer was the king’s brother, Prince Seeiso, who visited the army barracks in Maseru on behalf of the royal family. Seeiso appealed for professional detachment on the part of the military and for the defence force brass to withdraw its troops from the palace. He argued that instead of protecting the royal family, the presence of the military was inflaming a volatile situation.
But whether the best interests of the tiny kingdom are being served is open to doubt. About two weeks ago the LCD government used a special fund to buy a farm near Ladybrand in the name of the defence force chief.
The money for the purchase was authorised from Lesotho’s security fund by Prime Minister Phakalitha Mosisili and Foreign Minister Tom Thabane. The deeds were signed by Mosakeng, who is now legal owner.
The South African intervention could prove too little because the proposed SADC forensic audit of the elections will, in terms of the agreement, be undertaken in conjunction with the country’s Independent Electoral Commission.
This, according to the opposition, is leaving the fox to look after the chickens: its contention is that the IEC was part of the alleged rigging.
And the evidence suggests it could have been. A military intelligence official inside Lesotho has claimed high-level orders were given three weeks ago for the systematic destruction of election documentation lodged supposedly under lock and key with the IEC. Last week a substantial batch of voter papers was found dumped at a sewerage plant alongside the Caledon River.
Election logistics, including the collection of ballot boxes, had been organised by the Tactical Intelligence Bureau on the orders of Mosakeng. The bureau was paid by the military, and not seconded to the IEC.
And a recount last week of voting in 32 constituencies revealed a pattern of inexplicable “ghost-voting”: in each of the constituencies, around 2 000 ballot papers lacked the authenticating mark of the voting officer at the polling booth.
Such ballots should have been rejected out of hand, yet IEC officials had apparently systematically failed to pick up the inconsistency.