Lesotho’s ruling party has won local government elections in the small mountain kingdom, the first to be held since it gained independence from Britain in 1966, an election official said on Monday.
Leshele Thoahlane, the country’s Independent Electoral Commission chairperson, said full results of the April 30 vote are not yet available, but that the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) ”won by a very large margin”.
The municipal elections were to choose representatives to 129 councils, with a third of the seats reserved for women.
”The LCD has won by a very large margin, followed by independents. The good performance of the independents shows that democracy is becoming deeper and more entrenched,” Thoahlane said.
Local elections in the tiny country of about 1,8-million people were marred, however, by a low voter turnout, with only about 30% of the country’s 830 000 registered voters casting their ballots.
Thoahlane played down the low turnout, saying ”elections have gone very well”.
”As far as we are concerned, the percentage of people who voted in these elections was very good, considering that they were the first elections of their kind in this country,’ he said.
Thoahlane said the elections were hampered by logistical problems and may have been influenced by a campaign launched by seven opposition parties to have it postponed, on grounds that there were irregularities and discrepancies in the run-up to the polls.
The LCD was followed by independent candidates, the Basotho National Party and the Lesotho People’s Congress.
Other opposition political parties shared the rest of the votes. — Sapa-AFP