Lesotho is holding a snap election Saturday, two years earlier than planned in an effort to restore order after an attempted coup in August last year left the country’s government in political deadlock. A potential rejection of results from losing parties risks sparking more violence in the small, landlocked kingdom.
The election is aimed at restoring stability in the mountainous African kingdom that was caught in a political impasse when Prime Minister Thomas Thabane suspended parliament last June, widely seen as an attempt to prevent the opposition from passing a no-confidence motion that would oust him from power.
In August, an alleged coup attempt took place after Thabane sought to replace the army’s top commander, said to be an ally of Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) brokered an agreement with the coalition parties, ending the suspension of parliament and clearing the way for this snap election.
Thabane, who was forced to flee the country last year, told VOA Friday that he still fears for his life.
In the prime minister’s home district of Abia, people wearing bobble hats and wrapped in woollen blankets braced the chilly morning air to cast their vote in canvas tents pitched in a field. Sniffer dogs swept the area for explosives prior to the arrival of the prime minister. Thabane, flanked by heavily armed security forces, was in fighting spirits when he cast his vote Saturday morning.
“My opponents will never praise me and I am not going to praise them myself, that’s politics,” he said. “You don’t praise your enemy in politics, you pull him down and you pull off his pants so women can laugh at him so tighten your belt if you are in politics. Here in politics, we do onto others as they do unto us.”
Thabane refuted accusations from opposition parties that he has stuffed government institutions with his supporters to assert power.
Three of the largest political parties are jostling for the top seat: Thabane’s All Basotho Convention (ABC), the main opposition Democratic Congress (DC) led by Pakalitha Mosisili, and the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) led by Metsing.)
Voting in Abia, Winned Magala said she voted for Mr. Mosisili who held power as prime minister from 1998-2012. Years at the helm of government have given him an advantage, she says.
“Before, I was ABC but he was not satisfying them, he promised but he didn’t do it. Like now, I am not working but he promised the work but he didn’t so that’s why I am coming to vote DC. I think the order of DC is coming to do something better than Thabane,” she said.
With no opinion polls in Lesotho, it is difficult to predict the election outcome, but some say that the Democratic Congress is a strong contender. The party won a significant number of seats in the 2012 election but fell short of winning a majority, losing out to the ABC-led coalition.
An indecisive vote is likely, leading most of the top candidates to look for allies to form a coalition government.
For some voters, they feel the politicians have not done enough for Lesotho, where nearly 60 percent of the two million population live below the poverty line.
“According to me, I don’t see anything that can be different because here they are still the same people, same people,” said Rethabile Bohope, 23, who is unemployed. “If this one goes down, this one comes up, there’s no difference, they will look for themselves and their own benefits.”
Voting will finish at 5 p.m. CAT. Results will be announced as they are counted.
…
