Lesotho’s ruling party won the first 14 seats in weekend elections by a wide margin, electoral officials said on Sunday as observers predicted a landslide victory.
”The Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) looks set to sweep the floor,” Roger Southall of the Pretoria-based Human Sciences Research Council said at the result centre in Maseru.
Lesotho is currently confronted with food shortages so severe that 80% of its people face starvation. The small country, landlocked by South Africa, has an unemployment rate of 45%. It is estimated that 24% of the population aged between 15 and 49 have HIV/Aids.
Southall said the main opposition Basotho National Party (BNP) — led by former military ruler Major-General Justin Metsing Lekhanya — looked set to come in at second again.
Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili’s LCD also won 11 of 12 party votes by 6:00pm (16H00 GMT) on a second ballot for proportional representation in the 120-member parliament, on the basis of which 40 seats will be allocated.
Under a new mixed electoral system, the 14 constituency wins for the LCD translate directly into seats in parliament.
”If this trend continues the LCD will dominate parliament with about 62% of the vote on average and the BNP will have about 26% in parliament,” said Alwyn Viljoen of the Lesotho Independent Electoral Commission.
The balance would be shared by the remaining 17 parties, who are assured more representation after going begging under the ‘first-past-the-post poll’ system of May 1998.
Four years ago the LCD won 79 of 80 seats in the mountain kingdom’s last elections, but was accused by opposition supporters of rigging the vote.
Faced with massive protests and an army mutiny, the LCD allowed in a military intervention force from South Africa and Botswana. The subsequent clashes left 75 people dead.
On Saturday and early Sunday, the country’s 830 000 registered voters turned out in droves for the country’s first election since the chaos in the hope that it will mark a return to political stability. Polling stations reported an average show of more than 70%.
The ghost of 1998 has however haunted the run-up to the weekend elections, along with current severe food shortages.
Mosisili and the BNP’s Lekhanya have, in recent days, again clashed over whether those responsible for the riots should be punished. Lekhanya and other opposition figures have called for a general amnesty, but Mosisili has threatened to bring to book those behind the violence.
Lekhanya warned on Sunday: ”The soldiers and policemen being held for that are political prisoners. I would like them to get amnesty. If they persist with persecutions, the country could go up in flames”.
The elections are the third democratic poll in Lesotho since independence from Britain in 1966, which was followed by four years of democracy and 23 years of military rule. Regional and international observers, of whom 250 are deployed in Lesotho, have so far said it appeared voting went smoothly and the poll was fair.
The earliest results had suggested the BNP would pose stiff competition, but the partial official results seemed to contradict this as the LCD was winning by big margins.
The exception was Teya-teyaneng — an urban stronghold of the third biggest party, the Lesotho People’s Congress — where the LCD won the party vote by a slim margin and lost the proportional vote by one percent.
Voting, extended at 48 polling stations after logistical delays, ended at noon on Sunday. – Sapa-AFP