The ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) won 61 constituency seats in weekend polls, giving it a parliamentary majority, the Lesotho Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) announced on Tuesday.
The IEC announced at 10:25am (0825 GMT) that the LCD had won its 61st constituency seat out of 62 counted for the 120-seat parliament, giving it a majority.
”On the basis of these provisional results the LCD now has a majority in parliament,” said IEC commissioner Mokhele Likate on the third day of counting.
”We are waiting for the receipts of the originals to confirm finally that there is no tampering,” he added The only other party to take a constituency seat was the Lesotho’s People’s Congress (LPC), which won in its stronghold, Maseru.
The LCD has also taken 54% of the votes counted in a parallel proportional representation system to fill 40 seats, followed by the opposition Basotho National Party (BNP) with 22%.
The results were posted on a large screen in the national results centre in the capital, Maseru.
Lesotho, an enclave within South Africa, used the mixed voting system for the first time in Africa to give wider representation to smaller parties after trouble followed the last poll.
Those disputed elections in 1998 led to an army mutiny, military intervention by South Africa and Botswana, and widespread destruction and loss of life.
The results so far have almost mirrored those of the 1998 poll, when the LCD won 79 out of a total of 80 seats in a first-past-the-post system. The BNP took the other seat.
BNP leader Major General Justin Metsing Lekhanya lost his constituency, also in Maseru, in a result announced on Tuesday morning.
Lekhanya, a former military ruler, on Monday rejected the results on the grounds that his auditors had found patterns indicating ”pre-determined election results”.
But international observer missions declared the weekend voting had been free and fair in the tiny, impoverished southern African mountain country, threatened by famine and hard hit by high unemployment and HIV/Aids rates. – Sapa-AFP