Lesotho’s ruling party was headed on Monday for an overwhelming win in parliamentary elections, but a former military ruler now heading the main opposition party rejected the preliminary results.
International observers declared the weekend voting had been free and fair in the tiny, impoverished southern African mountain kingdom.
By early evening, the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) had taken 43 of 44 constituency seats counted, out of 80, with 54,7% of the votes counted in a parallel proportional representation system to fill 40 seats.
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.
Major General Justin Metsing Lekhanya, who headed a military junta from 1986 to 1993 and leads the Basotho National Party (BNP), said the BNP would not accept the result until a forensic audit had been undertaken.
Lekhanya said forensic auditors appointed by the BNP had found patterns that indicated ”a strong possibility of pre-determined election results”.
He also objected to the ”free and fair” finding by observer missions.
”The BNP disputes and rejects (this),” he told a press conference.
Lekhanya said the gap between the lead of the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and the BNP, which was running second, was consistently large and problematic. But he could not provide further details.
He called on Basotho people ”to remain calm”.
”The poll was peaceful yes, free yes, but fair, that is not proven,” said Lekhanya.
Lekhanya also attacked the observers of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community for reaching what he claimed was a premature judgement on the poll.
One South African observer, Chris Landsberg, said: ”The BNP has no valid evidence to support its claims.”
The only other party to take a constituency seat by Monday evening besides the LCD was the Lesotho’s People’s Congress (LPC), which won in its stronghold, Maseru.
International observer missions called on Lesotho’s 2,2-million people to accept the results, declaring the weekend poll a success.
The SADC Extended Troika mission — Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe — said the elections were ”transparent, free, fair, peaceful, orderly and, therefore, reflecting the will of the people”.
”The mission appeals to the people of Lesotho to accept and respect the outcome of these elections,” said mission chairman Leonardo Santos Simao.
Commonwealth observers said the elections were conducted in a manner ”that provided the people of Lesotho with the opportunity to vote freely”, their group’s chairman Sir James Mitchell said in an interim statement. Six other delegations, in a statement released by the UN Electoral Assistance Secretariat, made similar comments. Final results are due to be released by Thursday.
The South African and Botswanan intervention in 1998 left at least 75 people dead, and Maseru and two other towns in Lesotho, now hard hit by the threat of famine and by HIV and Aids, were laid waste in rioting. – AFP
