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LESOTHO

History and Politics

The Kingdom of Lesotho, or Basutoland, as it was known through most of the 19th and 20th centuries, owes its origins largely to the genius of Paramount Chief Moshoeshoe I (1786-1870). During Southern Africa's chaotic 1820s and 1830s he asserted his control over a growing nation of Sotho-speaking people. By the 1830s, the name Basutoland was increasingly well known, and French missionaries began their work there under Moshoeshoe's protection, bringing literacy, modern agricultural and building techniques, and the arts of medicine and diplomacy.

The arrival of the Voortrekkers north of the Orange River in the 1840s altered the local balance of power, and Moshoeshoe approached the British authorities at the Cape to help control the spread of Boer settlers. Despite the signature of a number of treaties, wars broke out between the Basotho and the white settlers, and although Moshoeshoe was able to defend his mountain fortress at Thaba Bosiu, he was forced to sign agreements giving much of his best land to the Boers. Only in 1868 did Britain extend its protective sovereignty over what was left of Basutoland, a responsibility transferred three years later to the Cape Colony. Relations between the Cape and its Basotho charges deteriorated steadily into war in 1880, and in 1884, at the prompting of the Cape, Britain resumed direct responsibility for the Protectorate of Basutoland. The political and legal powers of the senior chiefs were largely maintained under the British policy of indirect rule -- a situation that lasted well into the 20th century.

It was only in 1950 that the first minor concessions were made to the elective principle in Basutoland, though the British still refused to concede legislative powers. In the background, however, rapid social, economic and political change was under way, not merely in Basutoland, but in South Africa too. As the self-confidence of educated commoners grew, they began to take a more prominent role in Basutoland, to a great extent displacing the chiefs as the backbone of society.

In 1952 Ntsu Mokhehle established the Basutoland African Congress (later renamed the Basutoland Congress Party -- BCP), to agitate for immediate self-government, and against the racially-discriminatory practices filtering across the border into Basutoland.

In 1958 a commission finally recommended that the National Council become a Legislative Council responsible for all internal matters affecting Basutoland. It was accepted that the Paramount would henceforth be a constitutional monarch. The Legislative Council met for the first time in March 1960,  and the next few years were marked by the struggle of various parties to gain control of the new government structures prior to the granting of full independence.

Although the BCP had succeeded in the 1950s in uniting a broad following among the Basotho, splits soon began to appear in its ranks. The Marematlou Party (later called the Marematlou Freedom Party -- MFP), formed in 1957, feared that commoners would succeed in dominating the legislature, and looked to the new Paramount, the Oxford-educated Constantine Bereng --who was to be proclaimed Moshoeshoe II in March 1960 -- to provide the nation with progressive, dynamic leadership.

A second split developed partly out of fears about Ntsu Mokhehle's links with radical Pan-Africanists. Chief Leabua Jonathan (a great-grandson of Moshoeshoe I) consequently established the Basutoland National Party (BNP) to oppose Mokhehle. There were also religious considerations: Roman Catholics tended to follow the more conservative BNP, while the Protestant educated elite favoured the BCP which promised to liberate them from chiefly dominance.

In the elections of 1960, the BCP succeeded in winning 32 of the 40 elected seats, but most of the appointed members in the Council voted with the BNP and MFP, effectively frustrating the BCP. In response the BCP became even more militant, but its extreme rhetoric alarmed many of its supporters. Large numbers deserted to the BNP, and the South African government also lent its  support to Chief Jonathan.

In 1961 Moshoeshoe II appointed another commission to draft the constitution under which Lesotho would achieve independence.It reported in 1963 in favour of a Westminster-style, two-chamber parliament. The Paramount, though his title was transformed to that of King, was to be a mere figurehead, to his great disappointment Britain approved the pre-independence constitution in 1964 and the next election provided a surprising result, with Jonathan's BNP taking 31 seats to the BCP's 25. Thus it was a BNP government that led the Kingdom of Lesotho to independence on 4 October 1966.

Independence

The early years of independence were not particularly happy. Lesotho was no less poor than it had been previously, nor any less dependent on South Africa. In the political arena the government was engaged in running battles with both the BCP and the King and his supporters. In part the antagonism between Jonathan and the King could be traced back to bitter dynastic rivalries that had surfaced in the 19th Century.

The BNP government came to depend increasingly on South African administrative, financial and commercial assistance. Collaboration with South Africa suited the BNP, but further alienated the indigenous middle classes and intelligentsia. Nevertheless, though the BNP was able to cement its hold on power through collaborationist policies, these failed to translate into improved living conditions for the majority of Basotho, who in any case harboured an innate anti-Afrikaner sentiment that drew on folk-memories of conquest and the loss of land. Disappointed voters once again switched sides and in the 1970 elections the BCP won 35 seats to the BNP's 23 and the MFP’s 1. Jonathan refused to accept defeat, however, and, encouraged by a South African government disturbed by Mokhehle's "radicalism", suspended the constitution and declared a state of emergency. King Moshoeshoe II was initially placed under house arrest but later allowed to go into exile in the Netherlands. These developments merely served further to narrow the domestic political support base of the BNP, and entrenched the regime’s relationship of dependence vis-à-vis the Pretoria government.

Though the King was allowed to return to Lesotho in 1971, Jonathan ruled the country without any recourse to representative institutions. In 1973 Jonathan established an interim legislature and began work on a new constitution, a move that split the BCP again, as some members were won over to Jonathan’s side. Mokhehle's supporters staged an abortive coup in 1974 and then fled into exile, to begin an underground war against the Jonathan government.

It was at this stage that Jonathan and his lieutenants began to reconsider their options. In 1974 the Lisbon coup and the subsequent liberation of Angola and Mozambique constituted the first significant breaches in the settler fortress of Southern Africa. Collaboration with South Africa had also yielded fewer material benefits than expected for Lesotho’s elite and their constituents, making the unpopularity of the policy and the continental ostracism that followed that much more difficult to endure. Gradually Lesotho’s leaders began to ponder the advantages of shifting to a radical stance in the region, which would certainly attract the sympathy and financial support of the outside world. It might also go some way towards undermining the support base of the exiled BCP.

By 1976 Jonathan’s reorientation was virtually complete. Following the Soweto rising of 1976, the Lesotho government issued a number of public warnings to Pretoria about its repressive policies, and began to open ties with the African National Congress. Lesotho refused to recognise the independence of Transkei later that year and in 1977 joined the Frontline States grouping.

By 1979 the BCP had split once more, one faction negotiating its return to Lesotho, while another under Mokhehle was prepared to accept Pretoria’s help to form a military wing, the Lesotho Liberation Army, which launched a number of nuisance raids into Lesotho from South African soil over the next few years. There was a brief lull in 1980 following a temporary rapprochement between Maseru and Pretoria, but an upsurge in unrest in South Africa and suspicions that Lesotho was harbouring ANC bases saw a resumption of destabilisation, culminating in a bloody raid on Maseru in 1982. These events forced Jonathan even deeper into the radical camp, and he established diplomatic relations with a number of socialist countries.

In 1983 Pretoria began to exert pressure by restricting the flow of traffic into Lesotho. This was followed by further military incursions from South Africa in 1984. Further economic and diplomatic pressure followed and Pretoria began to co-ordinate the activities of exiled opponents of the Jonathan regime. Lesotho’s general election of September 1985 deteriorated into farce when all five opposition parties withdrew to allow the BNP a clean sweep without a single vote being cast.

By early 1986, Pretoria had tightened its blockade of the mountain kingdom and the fear of economic strangulation and the army’s growing apprehension about the growing power of the BNP’s militant youth wing served as the triggers for the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) to  intervene in the political arena on 20 January 1986, only a few days after its commander had returned from consultations in Pretoria.

Heading Lesotho's new ruling Military Council was Major-General Lekhanya, who now found himself propelled into leadership by colleagues more directly involved in the coup. These other senior officers included close relatives of the King, who was now invested with executive and legislative powers, though these were to be exercised in consultation with the Military Council, which retained an effective veto. The new arrangement suited the royalists and the traditional chiefs, who effectively had been sidelined during Jonathan's rule, and had resented the BNP's relegation of King Moshoeshoe II to the status of a national symbol. The new regime also enjoyed the support of BNP conservatives, including the experienced former minister Evaristus Sekhonyana, a business associate of Lekhanya's. Pretoria soon ended the border blockade and shortly indicated a willingness to suspend its association with the BCP, which subsequently reached an agreement with Lekhanya permitting its leader, Ntsu Mokhehle, to return to Lesotho in 1989.

The new military regime was inept, however, being riven by internal tensions and personal ambitions, corrupt and incapable of managing national affairs. It staggered on through a number of notable disasters, including a memorable Papal visit in 1988 when, in full view of international television, it was compelled to rely heavily on South African assistance. The blatant faults of the new regime, Lekhanya's ruthless treatment of the BNP's radical wing, a number of whose leaders died in mysterious circumstances, and his public dependence upon South Africa quickly brought his government into bad odour, exacerbated by sordid personal scandals. In February 1990 the ambitions of the royalist faction within the Military Council provoked an open power struggle. Lekhanya quickly neutralized the challenge mounted by two of the King's cousins, whom he also charged with involvement in the murder of BNP ex-ministers. When King Moshoeshoe refused to acquiesce in the removal of his kinsmen from office, Lekhanya simply stripped him of his powers, purged the cabinet of royalists and took full control. In March 1990 the King went into exile in Britain.

Partly, no doubt, to improve the tattered image of his regime, in late February 1990 Lekhanya indicated a desire to return Lesotho to democracy by May 1992. By now events in South Africa had made it clear that the RLDF could no longer hold the line against the regional manifestations of the global democratic tide. In May 1990 Lekhanya established a National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) to deliberate upon a new dispensation, to be based on the independence constitution.

Late in 1990 the tensions between King Moshoeshoe and Lekhanya came to a head. The King, now representing himself as a champion of democracy, refused to return home unless the military government stood down. Lekhanya responded by passing a decree deposing Moshoeshoe and installing in his place his eldest son, the 27-year old Prince Mohato Seeiso. The latter was sworn in as King Letsie III, though he was never formally crowned, an omission of considerable symbolic significance. While Moshoeshoe's removal was designed to limit the political influence of the monarchy, it ensured that the crown itself would remain a political issue. It also gave freedom to Moshoeshoe, now officially Chief Bereng Seeiso, to attack the government of the day after his eventual return in July 1992.

By then Lekhanya himself had gone from the scene. At the end of April 1991, he was forced to resign by soldiers angry at being offered no more than a 22% pay increase. The rank and file felt that this compared poorly with the fabulous sums rumoured to be made by those closer to the centre of power. Their resentment coincided with a perception in the force's hierarchy that Lekhanya was losing his ability to protect the LDF's corporate interests. He had also failed to dismiss two of his civilian ministers, Tom Thabane and Evaristus Sekhonyana, who were implicated in scandals involving vast amounts of money; they fled Lesotho in the wake of Lekhanya's removal. The new head of the government was Colonel (later Major-General) Elias Rameama, another member of the Military Council. He appears to have accepted the new appointment somewhat reluctantly, and indeed did so at a difficult time domestically and internationally.

Developments in South Africa since 1990 had stimulated greater openness in public political debate within Lesotho and had also signalled the removal of Pretoria's implicit support for a conservative military regime in Maseru. When the Lesotho government resorted to brutal repressive measures to counter a wave of industrial strikes and public unrest in 1991, it was left isolated in the face of international condemnation. Indispensable foreign donors and influential governments stepped up their pressure on the regime for the introduction of accountable government.

Rameama seems genuinely to have wanted a more rapid transition to democratically-elected civilian government, but he faced considerable opposition within the LDF. The bloodless coup that had removed Lekhanya had also revealed differences within the army about the modalities of return to civilian rule. For the remainder of his time in office Rameama was to struggle to maintain control over his soldiers. Corruption had been pervasive within the Lekhanya regime, with allegations, too, of high-level involvement with  the traffic in drugs and false passports. Several military men therefore had an interest in preventing retrospective prosecution or recovery of illicit gains and were eager to build in a protective constitutional entrenchment of the military's presence in a civilian government. On the other hand, Rameama argued that the army's interests would be better served by self-imposed restraint and an acceptance of civilian authority. The fragile nature of the balance was revealed by Rameama's gentle response to the attempt by a group of officers to reinstate Lekhanya a few weeks after he had been displaced. Some twenty officers were indeed dismissed, but not detained. Lekhanya himself was allowed to leave for South Africa, where he joined Sekhonyana and Thabane.

In the event, the commission that reviewed the recommendations of the NCA and produced the draft constitution left the issue of military-civil relations dangerously vague, with consequences all too predictable. Essentially anti-democratic provisions were added to the constitution in an effort to convince influential elements in the RLDF that their interests would be preserved despite the election of a civilian government. This was in addition to legislation that afforded members of the security forces immunity from prosecution for crimes committed during the period of military rule.

Rameama lifted the ban on party political activity late in 1991, and tried to organize the elections for the following year. On the recommendation of the Commonwealth-appointed Electoral Officer, however, the elections were postponed in November 1992 because of administrative and delimitation problems, and again in January 1993. They were eventually held on 27 March 1993, though the delay fed public suspicion that the army was using technical excuses to prolong or avert the transition.

The 1993 elections were eventually contested by thirteen parties. Of these only the BCP and BNP fielded candidates in all 65 constituencies. The royalist Marematlou Freedom Party (MFP) was the only other significant contender, the remainder being the fabrications of splinter groups and party renegades, most of them formed only at the end of 1991.

The BCP began the election campaign as the outright favourite. From the time when its leaders had begun to return from exile in 1988 there had been little doubt that they would inherit the state. In 1992-93 a democratization exercise monitored by international observers offered the BCP a clear and unprecedented opportunity to capture power. In 1965 the BCP had been frustrated by the support given to the BNP by the chiefs and the Catholic Church. In 1970 the security apparatus, with South African backing, had been strong enough to overturn the election result and to then defeat the BCP's counter-coup in 1974. In 1985 the BCP had refused to legitimize Jonathan's political manipulations and had rejected participation in a BNP-administered election.

Despite the context of democratization and a new political beginning for Lesotho, the election was really about the resolution of the country's bitter political history, and about providing the electorate with the opportunity to pass judgement on the outcome and consequences of the aborted election of 1970. The BCP did all it could to intensify this focus.

The BCP had gone underground following its abortive coup attempt in 1974. But for all its  appeals to pan-Africanism, its sympathy with the South African PAC and its rhetorical populism -- reflected in attacks on established power blocs such as the chiefs, foreign-owned businesses and the Catholic Church -- the BCP remained a party dominated by the educated and the professional, whose heterogeneous membership ruled out any likelihood that it would ever embrace democratic socialist policy options. It represented itself as the party of the commoners, as opposed to the interests of the chiefs and the landowners. It also maintained a firm position on the monarchy, insisting that the King confine himself to the role prescribed in the constitution. Whatever his standing with Lesotho's military rulers, King Moshoeshoe's apparent acquiescence in the excesses of the Jonathan regime and his initial collaboration with Lekhanya had done little to recommend him to the BCP's leadership.

The years of exile left a legacy of internal feuding within the BCP, despite the excision of certain figures from the leadership. Relations between the politicians and the old armed wing of the movement, the LLA, were also not entirely happy. The tangled skein of insurgent politics had left its mark in lasting personal resentments and a tradition of almost paranoid suspicion. Dr Ntsu Mokhehle had founded the BCP in 1952 and his standing as the embodiment of the BCP struggle ensured that his hold on the leadership went unchallenged. Unfortunately, Mokhehle's own personality, age and infirmity merely accentuated the organizational weaknesses of his party.

The new BCP executive was a composite of internal Mokhehle loyalists and former exiles. A major feature was the emergence of Molapo Qhobela, who had worked for the party outside the country from its earliest days  as deputy-leader. Qhobela had a large following among current and former LLA members, and emerged as the party's most vigorous spokesman and strategist, skilfully managing to hold its various elements together. He worked closely with Ntsu Mokhehle to lay the groundwork for victory, establishing party structures in every constituency and assessing the amount of grassroots support at village level. Most BCP candidates were elected at constituency level well before the election, and certainly ahead of those of the BNP. Numerous meetings were held nationwide, and BCP campaigning was both energetic and imaginative. The BCP focused heavily on explanations of the whole voting process, upon the historical right of the BCP to rule, and the need to repudiate the BNP, whose corruption and incompetence were held to have ruined the country.

For its part, the BNP was very much weakened by obvious internal divisions, and faced the electorate as the poor loser of 1970 and the focus of popular discontent since 1986. The close involvement of  Sekhonyana's right-wing with the RLDF also identified the BNP with the harshness of military rule. All this placed the BNP on the defensive throughout the elections, aggravated by unresolved internal tensions and the need to elect a leader to succeed Jonathan, who had died in 1987. Lekhanya's clampdown on the youth league had smashed the party's radical wing, leaving the right predominant, but the right was divided between those who had favoured collaboration with Lekhanya and those who opposed the military's assumption of power. The split was personified in the leadership contest between Sekhonyana and Peete Peete, who was widely considered Jonathan's heir apparent.

Promises of an amnesty allowed Sekhonyana's return to Lesotho four months after the Rameama's accession to power, and he immediately launched his campaign for the leadership. Although Sekhonyana emerged as the eventual victor in this struggle the collateral damage from mutual accusations did nothing to improve the party’s chances at the forthcoming polls.

Established in 1957, the MFP had always been regarded as a third party, historically supported by many of the chiefs, several of whom are related to one or other branch of the ruling dynasty. It sought to use the campaign to turn the dethronement of Moshoeshoe II into a major issue, presuming that the electorate was absorbed by the fate of the monarchy, and by implication, with shoring up the declining powers of the senior chiefs. But the MFP fared no better than in 1970. Internal squabbles adversely affected its image, and the MFP had no real party organization, though it did launch a newspaper which helped keep the issue of corruption very prominent, to the detriment of the BNP, whose connivance in Moshoeshoe's dethronement had alienated many royalists.

In the middle of the election campaign, in mid-January 1993, King Letsie caused a stir by indicating publicly that he wished to return the crown to his father. Thus, only a short while before the election, the Military Council felt constrained to warn the public to ignore letters, apparently written by Letsie, inviting the people to a public gathering in Maseru on the occasion of Moshoeshoe Day, 12 March 1993, to decide on the kingship. The Military Council indicated that the letters had been written without the government's knowledge and alleged that they were intended to disturb the peace. Letsie's response was to invite the chiefs and the heads of the security services to meet him on 3 March to discuss the government reaction.

The Military Council took no chances that it would be presented with a fait accompli  on the 12th, sending troops to surround the palace the previous evening, presumably to prevent Letsie emerging to announce his abdication in favour of his father. Despite these alarms and manoeuvres, however, the kingship issue remained peripheral to other concerns during the run-up to the elections, not least because the BNP and BCP were united in their insistence that the monarch remain a constitutional figurehead.

Far more important was the question of whether the army would indeed hand over power to an elected civilian government and return to barracks. There were a number of considerations: the existence of the LLA and its future; the domination of BNP supporters in the ranks of the armed forces; the fortunes made by senior officers during the period of military rule; and the preferential treatment received by the rank-and-file in the matter of pay awards to the public service.

Desperate to secure the army's approval for the new dispensation, the framers of the new constitution agreed to the inclusion of a Defence Commission in the government's composition. In the initial draft constitution this Commission was accorded the virtual right of veto over decisions by the National Assembly. Shortly before the election, however, the BNP and the BCP joined forces to compel the army to concede to a Defence Commission with reduced powers and a hint of technical accountability to the Assembly. Nevertheless, Sections 145 and 146 of the draft constitution still left the question of control over the armed forces essentially unresolved. The sections dealing with the Police, National Security and Prison Services likewise vested the powers of appointment to command in the Defence Commission.

Adding to the confusion was the Lesotho Defence Force Order, gazetted on 28 March 1993. Sections 10 to 12 of this Order also dealt with the Defence Commission, but omitted the Prime Minister from its composition, and stipulated that the chairmanship was to be held by the Commander of the Defence Force.

Reflecting the public's general uncertainty and historical experience, the elections themselves were marked by a mood of apprehension. This increased the following day as early results indicated that the BCP was on the way to a landslide victory, and the BNP had already begun to protest that foul play had occurred and to threaten, ominously, not to accept the result.  International observers, though admitting that there had been some problems in conducting the ballot, said that there had been no deliberate manipulation of the results, which could be accepted, therefore, as accurately reflecting the will of the electorate. Most analysts were agreed that the BCP's stunning victory owed less to the public choice between two rather similar manifestos than a sense that justice needed to be done following the fiasco of 1970, when Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan had staged a coup rather than accept defeat at the polls, and Ntsu Mokhehle had been denied power by force.

The final results indicated that the BCP had won more than a landslide: it had taken all 65 constituencies. The magnitude of the BCP victory, which left the BNP with no parliamentary voice, simply lent an extra urgency to the fears within the BNP-oriented civil service and security forces that mass dismissals would follow. On 1 April 1993 the Military Council held a final emergency session amid rumours that another coup was in the offing, and General Rameama subsequently visited the barracks to calm the soldiers. Later that day Letsie III was sworn in as head of state under the new Constitution. The leader of the BCP, Dr Ntsu Mokhehle, was then sworn in as Prime Minister.

Whatever the historical justice of Mokhehle's accession to power, it can be argued that he came to the job too late. At the age of 74, the years had treated him less kindly than they had South Africa's new president. His health seemed unlikely to allow him more than a brief tenure at the head of government, and denied him the stamina to deal effectively with the challenges the BCP now faced. From the outset, then, the new administration confronted an ill-disguised competition for the succession to the leadership. The rigours of political in-fighting in exile had left Mokhehle an extremely suspicious man -- some commentators went as far as to describe him as paranoid. In the past he had engaged readily in bitter quarrels with his party colleagues, and there was some question about whether he could become more tolerant once in power. In appointing his cabinet Mokhehle also appears to have fuelled the divisive tendencies already at work inside his party. The post of Deputy Prime Minister went thus not to the long-serving and ambitious deputy-president of the BCP, Molapo Qhobela, but to Selometsi Baholo, who also received the Finance, Economic Planning and Manpower portfolios. Qhobela had to be satisfied with Foreign Affairs, but his personal rivalry with Baholo did nothing to smooth the operations of government, for the two ministers were barely on speaking terms. Another rival for the apparently imminent succession to the BCP leadership was the Prime Minister's younger brother Shakhane Mokhehle, who became the Minister of Trade, Industry, Tourism, Labour and Employment.

The domestic and international legitimacy afforded the new government by its sweeping victory also meant that it was to be judged by more rigorous standards than its predecessors. For a start it was expected to be more than a patronage machine or a means for those in control of the state to enrich themselves. It was expected to live up to commitments to root out corruption in the public sector, to respect human rights, repeal repressive legislation and restore democracy at local council level.

Yet the new ministers and their advisers were all inexperienced in the business of government. Some had come directly from the less responsible, more relaxed environment of academia, and obviously found themselves at a disadvantage in dealing with civil servants whose political sentiments were hardly sympathetic. An indication of the BCP's surprising lack of preparedness for its new responsibilities was reflected in its failure to rework its campaign manifesto into a coherent policy guideline for the civil service. Instead the manifesto was distributed unaltered to the administration. For many the habits of exile appeared difficult to shake off, and the government worked in conditions of near secrecy even concerning the most mundane affairs. Whether because of inexperience or ineptitude, the Cabinet seemed unable to impart any sense of direction to affairs of state, and was described variously as "stagnant", "indecisive" and "uncaring". Administrative delay followed delay, and it was a month after the naming of the Cabinet before Parliament was finally convened, and another two months before the departmental principal secretaries were appointed. Among the most serious consequences of the new administration's lack of direction was the decision by a number of donors to reduce or even close down their operations in Lesotho. Having been virtually coerced into a democratic dispensation by the international community, Lesotho now found itself in increasingly desperate straits as the donors withdrew in frustration at the inability of the democrats to make or co-ordinate decisions.

Nor was the new Parliament a very dynamic body. One of its initial concerns was to pass legislation substantially increasing the monthly salaries of MPs  and  cabinet ministers. The government argued that such increases constituted the best defence against the perennial temptations of bribery and corruption; a more cynical view saw the new legislators catering for their own needs ahead of those of their constituents, who faced the grim consequences of a serious and the evidently irreversible growth of mass unemployment.

The National Assembly made its opponents a small gesture of reconciliation in electing Dr Kolane, a member of the BNP, as its Speaker. He had been Speaker of the National Constituent Assembly and was widely held to be well qualified for the job. This was insufficient, however, to win over the BNP leadership and on 11 May 1993 they rejected an offer of two Senate seats out of those reserved for nominated members, repeating their assertions that the election had been fraudulent and the that government therefore was illegitimate.

The new Constitution also made provision for a Council of State to assist the King in the execution of his duties. This was to consist of the Prime Minister; the Speaker of the National Assembly; two judges or former judges of the High Court or Appeal Court to be appointed on the advice of the Chief Justice; the Attorney-General; the Commander of the Defence Force; the Commissioner of Police; a Principal Chief nominated by the College of Chiefs; two members of the National Assembly appointed by the Speaker from  members of the opposition; and three others appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister by virtue of their expertise, skill or experience. Interestingly enough, the King or any member of the Council of State could summon it to meet. The Constitution also compelled the Prime Minister to keep the King informed about matters of state. In the event, these provisions seem to have been ignored through most of the crises that were to follow.

The BNP had long demonstrated a willingness to whip up its latent support in the RLDF by referring to the continued existence of the LLA, with its implied threat to the continued employment of serving soldiers, were the guerrillas to be incorporated in command positions in the army. It also hinted that the government might be maintaining the LLA as a possible counter-force, loyal to the ruling party, despite Mokhehle's promises that the BCP had disbanded its military wing. This was being done, it was said, by transferring LLA cadres to a private company, Security Lesotho. There seems to have been more than a smattering of truth to this allegation.

On 13 November 1993 Sekhonyana addressed a public rally in Maseru in which he voiced these allegations and warned BNP supporters to arm themselves. "If the RDLF is afraid of LLA", he was reported as saying, "we, the BNP members, will fight LLA until we are all killed if need be." The government reacted with stern warnings against those wishing to disturb the peace, but took no further action at this stage.

Given the fears of the army and the government's failure to assure its hold over the state's security apparatus, it was scarcely astonishing when a few days after Sekhonyana's inflammatory utterances scattered reports began to surface about a mutiny within the LDF. A number of junior officers had evidently reacted to the suggestion that LLA officers were to be placed in command positions by demanding the removal of certain senior officers viewed as sympathetic to the move. A brigadier and three captains were dismissed by junior officers without the sanction of either the Prime Minister or the Defence Commission. The government's only reaction was to keep the mutiny secret, and then to approach the South African government with a request that it send forces to disarm the LDF. On this occasion Pretoria declined to interfere so drastically in Lesotho's affairs, and the mutineers were allowed to have their way. A month later, the Commander of the LDF, Major-General Metsing, asked to be allowed to retire on grounds of ill-health, probably induced by his disgust at the government's weak handling of the affair. In his place the Defence Commission appointed Major-General A M Mosakeng.

By the end of the year the public's growing disquiet about the new government's performance began to manifest itself. This was the result not only of Mokhehle's failure to grasp the nettle of military insubordination, but of the general malaise afflicting the new administration.

The politicians' apparent preoccupation with their own comfort was also ill-received by soldiers grown used to preferential treatment during the period of military rule. On 10 January 1994 the Prime Minister was handed an unsigned letter by General Mosakeng. This purported to be a demand on behalf of the RLDF for a 100% pay increase, and an ultimatum requiring the government's reply within a fortnight. Mokhehle replied publicly that he was shocked by this demand, since the soldiers received the same consideration as other public servants, whose salaries were reviewed periodically.

It soon became evident, however, that the soldiers were far from unanimous in their support of the demand. On 14 January there was a skirmish during which the commander of the élite Air Wing, Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Majara, was wounded by troops at the Mokoanyane barracks, just outside Maseru. This clash appears to have reflected a difference of opinion between the 750 soldiers based at Mokoanyane, who had initiated the RLDF wage demand, and the élite 150 troops at the more central Ramatjose barracks. The Mokoanyane faction also seems to have believed that the Ramatjose troops had been "bought" by elements in the Cabinet which wished to dilute the RLDF with LLA troops. Rumours were allowed to circulate that Deputy Prime Minister Baholo had gone abroad to recruit mercenaries to bring the RLDF to heel. The flight of four Air Wing helicopters to the safety of a South African base during the unrest simply lent credibility to the gossip.

Mokhehle's immediate response to the breakdown of command was to send a letter  to the South African government pleading for Pretoria to send a peacekeeping force, essentially to disarm the RLDF. He consulted neither the Defence Commission nor the King before issuing his appeal for help. On being informed by the South African ambassador in Maseru that the situation was indeed dangerous, Foreign Minister“Pik” Botha arrived the following day to talk with the Lesotho Cabinet. He also asked to see Sekhonyana, an old friend, though the South Africans' reference to the latter as "leader of the opposition" was deemed offensive by Mokhehle, and caused a delay in the opening of these urgent talks -- a typical example of the administration's inability to identify priorities. Having spoken to both political camps, Botha warned that while his government had no intention of becoming embroiled militarily in Lesotho's problems, it would not hesitate to close the border should a coup occur. This threat appears to have secured promises of a truce from the two army factions, which now occupied the hill-tops around the capital.

Botha's intervention notwithstanding, trouble resumed on 18 January 1994 when a former member of the Military Council, and his son were wounded in an ambush. The Ramatjose faction of the army now launched revenge attacks, and the deterioration in the situation prompted the UN to ask its representative in Mozambique, Aldo Ajello, to offer his good offices to the Lesotho authorities, which he did in a visit on 19 January.

At this stage it appears that Lesotho's Foreign Minister, Molapo Qhobela, met the two warring factions in the company of General Mosakeng in an effort to ward off the threat of military confrontation, but on the 23rd  the fighting intensified once more, with mortar and machine-gun fire exchanged between Maseru's hills.

The following day Botha again ruled out the possibility that South Africa would intervene militarily, but indicated that he had notified the OAU, UN and Commonwealth of the gravity of the situation. Among other things this provided an indication that Pretoria saw the Lesotho crisis as an opportunity to exploit its new-found semi-respectability in the diplomatic arena, by involving Nationalist Party-ruled South Africa with the Frontline States in a peace initiative.

Meanwhile Mokhehle's government found itself assailed by criticism from all sides. The Prime Minister's apparent refusal to consult with other domestic political actors and the weakness revealed by his  panicky appeal for foreign assistance further damaged his waning credibility as a leader. Indeed, the Information Ministry revealed that while the government was talking to the international community about a solution, it had no contact with either military faction. Conflicting reports continued to emanate from official sources blaming the trouble variously upon a wage dispute and on more sinister political ambitions.

On the night of the 24/25 January 1994, Elijah Legwaila, Secretary to the President of Botswana, visited Maseru at the OAU's request and negotiated a truce to end the fighting, which had now claimed five lives and left another eleven people injured. The Lesotho crisis also dominated the deliberations of the SADC summit in Gaborone on 26 January, but only after it had provided the justification for a historic meeting between South Africa's President de Klerk, his Zimbabwean and Botswana counterparts and Nelson Mandela. Lesotho's Deputy Prime Minister, Selometsi Baholo, represented his country at the meeting and at the summit, to the considerable chagrin of Foreign Minister Qhobela. President Mugabe, as Chairman of the Frontline States, subsequently announced that the five leaders had agreed to the establishment of a task force, to be provided by Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa, to assist in the resolution of Lesotho's current difficulties. The task force was discussed by officials of the three participating countries at a meeting in Pretoria on the 27th.

By now the opposition in Maseru was mounting a co-ordinated public protest against foreign intervention in Lesotho's affairs, which it represented as a violation of the kingdom's sovereignty. An appeal to Lesotho's historical pride successfully touched a chord of latent national sentiment bordering on xenophobia. Confusing signals were also being sent by certain of Mokhehle's ministers. Foreign Minister Qhobela, for instance, denied foreign media reports that a task force was being assembled to investigate the army crisis. He told army representatives that no such force could exist, and that the Commonwealth was merely sending envoys to assist the government. He also emphasized that the army owed its allegiance to the King, not the Prime Minister, and promised the rebellious soldiers that no criminal proceedings would be instituted against them for their actions of the past fortnight.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is possible to discern several overlapping motives behind Qhobela's remarkable statements. First, he wanted to distance himself from Mokhehle's mishandling of the affair and to ingratiate himself with the military and to assure them of his bona fides in preserving their "political neutrality". Second, he sought to discredit his rival, Baholo, whom he also saw as having been allowed to usurp his own preserve as Foreign Minister, and who had been party to the Gaborone negotiations and the establishment of the task force. This also served to cast doubts upon Baholo's motives, since it reinforced the impression that the latter was sympathetic to the LLA, and therefore sought the emasculation of the LDF.

Despite Qhobela's reassurances to the soldiers, on 28 January a 17-strong tripartite "task force" led by the Zimbabwe's Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs arrived in Maseru on a three-day fact-finding mission. That same day BNP leader Evaristus Sekhonyana was formally charged with sedition, an astonishing move relating to the public speech he had made in November. To initiate such a prosecution at this juncture, with Lesotho still deep in crisis and the army's loyalty questionable, to say the least, raised questions about the government's prudence. Nevertheless, despite this provocative act, the Commonwealth-brokered peace accord went into effect on the night of 31 January, and the soldiers began to surrender their heavy weapons and equipment and return to barracks.

Also on the 31st the foreign ministers of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe met to consider the report of their fact-finding mission, which had evidently concluded that external intervention would be of limited use and that Lesotho must find a solution to its own problems.

On 5 February the rival army factions met with Commonwealth negotiator Moses Anafu, who said his mediation would also deal with the contentious issue of the integration of LLA cadres into the LDF. It was evidently agreed that LLA members could seek to enlist through normal procedures, though this would assume the existence of vacancies, which were unlikely given Lesotho's high rate of unemployment.

On 11 February 1994 Presidents Mugabe and Masire arrived in Maseru for talks with the government. They presented the tripartite commission's report, which warned that the crisis within the army might well recur unless the government took action to address the fundamental ambiguity of the RLDF's status and control. It pointed out that the BCP government had inherited a disaffected army and civil service, whose loyalty still had to be won. It also criticized the government's failure to act decisively during the November incident and made certain suggestions about constitutional reforms, partly to confirm the King's isolation from the political arena. The two presidents also talked with MPs, opposition politicians and the former King. It was evident, however, that it would take more than wise advice to alter the political style of certain elements in the Cabinet, who did their level best to frustrate Sekhonyana's meeting with the visitors by failing to inform him of the appointment.

Until April 1994 there was no sign that the Lesotho government had taken any notice whatsoever of the tripartite commission's report, but in the second week the report was tabled for parliamentary discussion and the Prime Minister indicated that an enquiry would be held into the events of January. This seems to have been enough to alarm some of the troops, for on 14 April confused reports emanating from Maseru spoke of gunfire and the abduction of a number of ministers by troops from Mokoanyane Barracks. It transpired that mutinous soldiers had arrested four ministers at their homes: the President's brother, Shakhane Mokhehle (Trade, Industry & Tourism), Monyane Moleleki (Natural Resources); Pakalitha Mosisili (Education, Training, Sports, Culture & Youth Affairs) and Kelebone Maope (Justice, Human Rights, Law & Constitutional Affairs). More seriously, they had shot dead Deputy Prime Minister Baholo, who had evidently resisted his abductors.

Parliament, whose members probably feared for their own safety, adjourned immediately, and once again Mokhehle launched an appeal to South Africa for assistance, saying that he was unable to locate the Officer Commanding, General Mosakeng. Though South Africa once again declined to intervene militarily, Pretoria undertook to ask SADF officers to contact their Lesotho counterparts in order to calm the situation, and again issued stern warnings that a military coup would result in non-recognition and the imposition of crippling sanctions.

Mokhehle also asked the King to intervene and summoned the Council of State, which sent delegations to the barracks, where they secured a promise that the detained ministers would be released unharmed after questioning. The soldiers had evidently selected three of their victims from among the younger ministers rumoured to have influence with the Prime Minister. Maope and the unfortunate Baholo were also believed to have participated in discussions about the rationalization of the RLDF earlier in the year, thus earning the dislike of the soldiers.

By 15 April the government was desperately trying to ameliorate the situation, making statements hinting that a soft line would be taken once the ministers had been released. A few days after regaining their freedom, however, the four ministers, joined now by Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Mpho Malie, fled Lesotho in fear for their lives, though their hurried departure was later said to have been on official business.

On 10 May 1994 a fresh crisis began when a large number of police announced that they were going on strike to demand 60% pay and 100% risk allowance increases for themselves, soldiers and prison officers. They also demanded that in future police promotions should be controlled by the Commissioner of Police, and not the Principal Secretary for Home Affairs. It was unclear how many of the police force were involved in the strike, but following looting in Maseru troops were deployed in the capital to maintain law and order.

On 12 May 1994 Mokhehle told the Senate that a Ministry of Defence had been established to take responsibility for all matters pertaining to the RLDF. The British government would be sending an adviser to assist with the setting up of the organizational structure. This low-key response to the situation was emphasized by his refusal to give further details saying that defence matters had to be dealt with in secret.

There were still few signs that the government's handling of its security problems was becoming more assured. Initially the Prime Minister certainly took a very hard line on the police strike, warning of mass dismissals unless there was a return to duty. He also held talks with the leaders of all political parties about the crisis, and summoned the Defence Commission. But old habits die hard, and Sekhonyana walked out of a meeting with the Prime Minister after the latter accused the BNP of stirring up trouble. Mokhehle and Sekhonyana met again on 25 May, together with the strikers' representatives, and agreement was reached the following day on massive increases in allowance scales for police and prisons staffs, and promises that the salaries issue would be considered by an Independent Salary Review Commission, to be composed of experts from outside Lesotho. The police finally ended their strike on 31 May, having been granted indemnity for all but criminal acts committed by individual members of the force.

The sense of insecurity continued to plague the Cabinet and was aggravated on 23 May when Information Minister and Acting Finance Minister Mpho Malie was briefly abducted at gunpoint by soldiers following his budget statement in which he had given offence to the soldiers by warning that their misguided actions had affected foreign aid and investment. Mines Minister Moleleki again fled the country, just as he was due to host the annual SADC mining ministers summit; he resigned on 26 May.

Thus, by early June 1994, the Lesotho government was limping from crisis to crisis, prompting Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe to hint on 6 June that the other states of the region were so tired of the recurring alarms that they might be compelled to send a military task force to knock sense into the disruptive elements in Lesotho. This signalled the general sense of frustration among other Frontline leaders at the inability of Lesotho's government to address the security problem.

On 24 June the Prime Minister announced the appointment of a commission of enquiry into the crisis in the RLDF. The commission, which was expected to complete its work by October was to look into the events that took place in Lesotho between November 1993 and April 1994, to investigate the role of the RLDF and its officer corps in those events and to make recommendations regarding the future composition and command structures of the RLDF.

The Commission's terms of reference were sufficiently broad to create renewed alarm among the soldiers. Not only did they permit it to investigate the heart of the civil-military crisis and invite it to formulate a sounder basis for civilian control over the military, they also hinted at both the reduction of the RLDF and the induction into its ranks of LLA cadres. The BNP’s reaction was to question the constitutionality of a commission including foreign military officers, to present a petititon to King Letsie asking him to relinquish the throne in favour of his father, and to call on the King to dismiss the BCP administration in favour of a government of national unity.

Mokhehle’s government chose this inauspicious moment to launch another assault on the institutions of monarchy, announcing on 26 July 1994 that a commission of enquiry was being established to investigate the events leading to Moshoeshoe It’s removal from office in 1990. The commission’s terms of reference were to include a review of the ex-King’s role in the run up to independence, his relations with the post-independence administrations and his part in events surrounding the two military coups of 1986 and 1991. To launch simultaneous and ill-disguised attacks on the military and the monarchy was an act of extreme folly on Mokhehle’s part, as he was soon to discover.

On 15 August, thousands of BNP supporters demonstrated in Maseru demanding the reinstatement of Moshoeshoe II. Two days later King Letsie III made a radio broadcast in which he announced the dismissal of the Prime Minister, the dissolution of Parliament and the suspension of certain articles in the constitution. He added that he was assuming executive and legislative powers and that he planned to relinquish the throne to his father. A transitional government of national unity was to be formed pending the holding of new elections to be organised by an independent commission. BCP supporters reacted by demonstrating in the streets of the capital demanding the abolition of the monarchy and the declaration of a republic. Troops fired on the demonstrators, killing five. Mokhehle’s cabinet refused to acknowledge the validity of Letsie’s actions, but were impotent to reassert control of the situation. On 19 August Letsie announced the formation of a 16-person council of ministers to assist him in governing the country. This was chaired by a Hae Phoofolo, and the foreign affairs portfolio was given to Evaristus Sekhonyana, leader of the BNP. The presence of senior army and police officers at the swearing-in of the new council of ministers left few in any doubt as to where their political loyalties lay.

The BCP now had recourse to only two weapons: it called for a two-day general strike and for South Africa to impose a blockade. South Africa’s President Mandela, though deploring the turn of events, refused to consider military intervention, though other Southern African leaders, including President Mugabe were alarmed at the precedent even implied tolerance of a coup might set. The troika of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana was again called into action to discuss the problem, Archbishop Desmond Tutu responded to an appeal by the church in Lesotho to attempt mediation, and leading members of the international donor community either suspended aid or threatened to do so, thus bringing to bear considerable material pressure on the palace in Maseru.

For a while the King remained unmoved, adding that he intended to purge the military, civil service and judiciary of unreliable elements. There were also preparations for the formation of an independent electoral commission. The only, mild, concession by the interim administration was that it did not foresee its life extending beyond eight months.

A summit in Pretoria on 25 August, attended by King Letsie, prime minister Mokhehle, the presidents of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana and by the secretary-general of the OAU, Salim Ahmed Salim, concluded with the demand that the King rescind his unconstitutional actions, and restore the democratically elected parliament. It set a deadline of a week for consultations with Mokhehle, but omitted to say what action might be taken should the King refuse to comply. Deadlines came and went, however, as the King sought clarification on a number of issues and a number of his ministers continued to make defiant noises. Further diplomatic mediation by the troika, another stayaway and South African military exercises within sight of Maseru eventually seem to have had the desired effect, and on 14 September King Letsie and Mokhehle signed an agreement restoring the latter’s government and providing for the eventual restoration to the throne of Moshoeshoe II. Representatives from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana also signed as guarantors of the pact, undertaking to monitor its implementation. By the end of 1994, the appropriate legislation had been passed by the National Assembly and Senate, following long debates admonishing the restored monarch to operate strictly within the confines in the constitution.  On 25 January 1995 Moshoeshoe II returned to the throne following the voluntary abdication of Letsie III, who assumed the title of crown prince.

Indiscipline in the security forces continued to present problems throughout the first half of 1995. In March junior officers of the National Security Service abducted and detained the director and another senior member of the NSS in March, demanding their resignations. The men were only released more than two weeks later, following the intervention of the commonwealth secretary-general. Other instances of harrassment of politicians by members of the NSS, and a police go-slow demonstrated that all was still far from well within Lesotho’s security services. The situation was exacerbated by the circulation of rumours that the BCP was planning to establish its own private army, with the assistance of South Africa’s Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA). In the face of these continuing signs of structural instability Mokhehle, whose health was clearly deteriorating, vacillated. Concessions were made in terms of salary increases for the army and police and, under the prompting of the troika, plans were made for a national dialogue on democracy in September 1995.

Moshoeshoe’s death in a motor accident in 1996 brought his son Letsie III back to the throne. Disputes between and within the police and the army continued to flare violently, and the government seemed unable to assert its authority. Personality and policy differences led to a split in the ruling BCP, with 38 of the BCP’s parliamentarians hiving off to form the Lesotho Democratic Congress (LCD) in 1997. The BCP now beame the official opposition under the leadership of Molapo Qhobela. Another member had earlier left the BCP to form the Sefate Democratic Union. Prime minister Mokhehle led the LCD until his retirement in 1998, when he handed over to Patrick Mosisili, who won a landslide victory in the subsequent elections held on 24-26 May, taking all but one seat.

Suspicions that the elections had been fraudulent led to serious opposition protests, which evidently enjoyed the tacit support of the King. On 4 August opposition parties began a vigil outside the royal palace to pressure King Letsie to declare the elections null and void. Parliament was also stormed by a mob of 1 000 protestors, and the army seemed reluctant to intervene. By mid-August South Africa’s deputy-president, Thabo Mbeki, had brokered a deal between the various Lesotho parties providing for the appointment of a commission of electoral experts from Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe, under the chairmanship of Pius Langa, deputy president of South Africa’s constitutional court to probe the poll results.

Over the next few weeks there were a number of clashes between protestors and police in Maseru and on 4 September between police and soldiers outside the royal palace, in which one policeman was killed and 10 other people wounded. On 10 September, delays in releasing the Langa Report on the elecitons provoked renewed warnings from the opposition, and on the following day RLDF comander Lt-General Mosakeng was forced to announce over national radio that he was resigning along with 24 other senior officers, all of whom had been taken prisoner by junior officers sympathetic to the opposition.

The next day South African defence minister Joe Modise arrived in Maseru to discuss the growing divisions within the Lesotho army, securing the release of those officers detained by the junior officers. But the following week, prime minister Mosisili made a double appeal to SADC to intervene to pre-empt a full-scale coup.

On 22 September units of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) crossed into Lesotho, to be followed a day later by contingents of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF). The stated aim of“Operation Boleas”, as the intervention was named, was to restore order, disarm the suspected mutineers and permit the Lesotho police to regain control of the situation. Unfortunately no provision had been made to cope with the outbreak of rioting, looting and arson that followed in the capital’s business districts, and immense damage and considerable loss of life ensued over the next few days.

Certainly there can be little doubt that while the destruction of Maseru was not the direct result of armed clashes between the intervening force and the RLDF, mutinous or not. But the evident failure of the SADC troops to prevent civilian disturbances confirmed publicly the vacuum of law enforcement, and thus made it clear to bystanders that nobody would interfere with the looting and destruction of businesses. In that sense, then, the intervention did help precipitate the destruction that followed, the trigger having also been supplied in the form of mounting anti-South African and then more general xenophobia.

In the aftermath of this poorly thought-through intervention other issues began to be raised about the legality of the Lesotho prime minister’s appeal. Here the main objection from the Lesotho opposition was that the Lesotho constitution demands that the King, as head of state, be informed by the prime minister. The prime minister’s response was that such an action was not advisable prior to the arrival of SADC forces, because the King was suspected of being sympathetic to the mutineers.

Both the Lesotho opposition and its South African counterpart were quick to condemn the operation as an invasion. The ruling party in Lesotho, however, by virtue of its numerical domination in the assembly was able to pass a parliamentary motion congratulating the government on its action in inviting SADC intervention to restore law and order.

As to whether the South African and Botswanan governments were entitled to act on behalf of SADC, without having convened a special meeting of that body, the official line was that they were entitled to do so under a standing mandate issuing from the 1994 memorandum of understanding with Lesotho’s government that south Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana would act as guarantors to the democratic process in Lesotho. This was invoked once it became apparent that a military takeover was a distinct prospect. Elements of the SADC intervention force remained in the country until May 1999, leaving behind a team of trainers to assist in the professionalisation of the RLDF .

South African mediation between the various political camps succeeded in achieving the government’s consent to the formation of an Interim Political Authority (IPA) to prepare the ground for new elections, planned for 2000. The bickering in and around this body, however, suggested that few of the lessons that led up to the tragedy of 1998 had been learned by the political class. The constitutional principles emerging from the IPA’s deliberations were extremely vague, and the burning issue of how to introduce a system of proportional representation remained unaddressed for many months.

Finally, In December 1999, the IPA stipulated that the configuration of parliament should be changed to increase the number of seats to 130, the additional 50 being elected according to the principle of proportional representation. The elections were to be held by June 2000, as agreed with the Commonwealth, UN and SADC.

By February 2000, however, these arrangements had begun fall apart when the Constitution Amendment Bill was presented to parliament. Unexpectedly, the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) dominated legislature unexpectedly decided to make several amendments, principal among which was reducing the proposed number of seats to 120, including only 40 on a proportional basis. The government rejected heated claims by the IPA and opposition parties that it had reneged on an agreement to which it had been a signatory, arguing that parliament remained sovereign.

Delay followed delay and deadline after deadline was missed, with blame being cast back and forth between government and IPA. SADC was eager to avoid entanglement in these squabbles, and seemed unwilling to commit any pressure in support of its own creation, the IPA. As a result the government was able gradually to gain the upper hand in the dispute about constitutional reform and the related matter of the timing of the elections.

The Senate’s resistance to government amendments was overcome by the unsubtle suggestion that the upper house might itself be come the subject of reform and even abolition, which would have a decisive effect upon the residual status and powers of the traditional leaders and, by extension, that of the royal palace. The government’s heavy-handed tactics failed to elicit much response from the international community, by now heartily sick of having to reiterate appeals for reasonableness and concessions.

Having secured its way over the redesign of parliamentary representation, the government was content to allow the Independent electoral commission to make the final decision on the method of registration., which was to take place from 13 August to 9 September 2001 with the final register being available sometime in early 2002, which would suggest that elections could be held in April or May 2002 at the earliest. In the event the registration process had to be extended by three weeks for logistical and organisational reasons, suggesting that further delays are possible.

Given the political climate over the past year or so, the run-up to elections will be marked by continued feuding within as well as between the leading parties. Personal exchanges of a virulent and public nature have been the stock in trade of the leading members of Lesotho’s political class since the resumption of democratic competition. This trend shows no signs of abating.

Divisions within the opposition Basotho Congress Party (BCP) were already in existence from the time of the LCD’s secession from the party in June 1997, and a running battle over the leadership subsequently emerged between Tseliso Makhakhe and Molapo Qhobela. The BCP’s annual congress at the beginning of 2001 witnessed another round in the bitter personality struggle, which led to the holding of two rival conferences and subsequent court actions about the control of the party and its national executive.

The other principal opposition party the Basotho National Party (BNP) has also been riven by deep factional divisions. General Lekhanya’s forthright leadership style and his attempts to marginalise the pro-Jonathan elements in the party has tended to cause friction within the BNP since he took the helm. The latest spat is with the party’s secretary-general, who has responded to allegations of incompetence by withdrawing his support for Lekhanya, in the process reminding him of his unacceptable past as a military ruler. The outcome of this dispute is still at issue, though Lekhanya appears to hold the upper hand.

It might have been expected that the ruling LCD would seek to take advantage of its opponent’s discomfiture by emphasising the need for party unity. Characteristically for Lesotho this has not proved the case. The Lesotho Congress for Democracy has split over control of its national executive committee. In many respects the LCD has merely carried forwards the factionalism that characterised Ntsu Mokhehle’s BCP: the conservative grassroots, led by Shakhane Mokhehle, justice minister, party secretary-general and younger brother of the late prime minister, and the intellectual and youth groups, led by Pakalitha Mosisili and supported by most of his cabinet. At the January 2001 party conference a dispute arose ostensibly as to whether the prime minister or the national executive committee should have the power to appoint ministers. This quickly developed into a fight for the secretary-generalship, which Shakane Mokhehle lost by the narrowest of margins to an ally of Mosisili. Allegations of irregularities began quickly to surface, and legal action was pursued, culminating in the victory of Mosisili’s faction and a cabinet reshuffle which saw the exclusion of Mokhehle an the demotion of his political ally deputy prime minister Moape, whose resignation from cabinet was announced on 28 September.

 

The Mokhehle faction will renew its court battle against the prime minister in October, ignoring the criticism of Justice Michael Ramodibedi earlier in August . On that occasion the learned and evidently frustrated judge criticised the politicians for using the courts to resolve their differences before exhausting internal remedies. He ascribed these failings on the part of the politicians to a lack of trust and political tolerance among party members and added, more pertinently:“At the root of this unholy war lie endless power struggles in which people jostle for positions in the management of political parties which in turn obviously provides access to funds and even fat allowances”.

 

 

An Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) was established by the IPA to run the 2002 parliamentary election set for 25 May 2002. The initial voter registration period which was from 13 August to 9 September 2001 was extended for an additional three weeks until 30 September due to the low level of registered voters. After the voter registration process was concluded the IEC announced that 832 000 voters were registered for the 2002.

 

 

According to the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa reported problems with this process included:
• Delays in delivery of registration material to registration centres;
• Confusion over the location of several registration centres;
• The depletion of registration materials; and
• The disobliging behaviour of a number of registration staff

 

 

Lesotho Election 2002

 

 

The Parliamentary elections that were held in Lesotho on 25 May 2002 are the third such event since democracy was restored to this mountain kingdom in 1993 following seven years of military rule. These elections, which were contested by 19 political parties, were concluded without much controversy surrounding the new electoral system (the mixed member proportional system) that includes elements of the old first-past-the-post system and proportional representation. This electoral system in which 80 seats were contested using the first-past-the-post system and the remaining 40 seats allocated using the proportional representative system in the 120 member parliament, had not been tried before in this country, and was therefore a cause for concern in the eyes of many observers. However, these fears surrounding the new electoral model were put to rest by a statement released by the International Election Observation Delegation that endorsed the election as “… free, fair, peaceful, lawful and transparent.”

 

 

The outcome of the election resulted in a landslide victory for the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD). The results announced on Tuesday 28 May showed that the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) won 76 of the 77 constituencies announced with large majorities. The only constituency election won by an opposition party was that of Seqonoka in the northern Berea district, which was won by the leader of the opposition Lesotho People's Congress (LPC) Kelebone Maope. However, the 40 additional seats allocated to other parties under the new proportional system in an expanded parliament will temper the ruling parties majority. Proportional representation was introduced to the electoral systems as a means to making parliament a more inclusive political institution. Elections in two constituencies Hlotse in the northern Leribe district and Mount Moorosi in Quthing where postponed due to the death of two candidates from natural causes. According to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) fresh elections will be held in these two constituencies soon.

On a less positive note, the leader of the Basotho National Congress (BNP), retired Major-General Justin Lekhanya, challenged the free and fair endorsement given to these elections by the electoral observers. The BNP subsequently hired independent auditors to established "distinct patterns" in voter behaviour that suggested the results had been manipulated. Lekhanya, who came into power in 1986 after a coup and ruled until he was deposed in 1991, did not reject the poll, but called for an independent audit. One of the fears that many observers of Lesotho politics had prior to the election, surrounded the influence that Lekhanya had over the security establishment in Lesotho, especially the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF). Analysts feared that Lekhanya would use his extensive influence and connections to convince the military to stage a coup in his support, should he fail to gain power through the ballot box. However the possibility of this occurring at that stage was very slim because, in an attempt to prevent any further disturbances by the military, the SADC and an Indian army unit had been training soldiers from the LDF in the hope that they can turn Lesotho’s troubled military into a more professional force.

 

The BNP was not alone in its objection to the results of the election; other opposition political parties aggrieved over the results of the general elections also instituted legal proceedings against that country's IEC. One such party was the Sefate Democratic Union (SDU) that served court papers on the director of elections, Khothatso Ralitsie, as he supervised the announcing of election results at the election center in Maseru on Tuesday 28 May. According to the court papers, the chairman of the IEC Leshele Thoahlane has been called upon to undertake a recount of the ballot papers throughout the country. However, the objections to the results, that were increasing in number and intensity later declined as most political parties began to accept the outcome of the elections as representing the will of the people. Luckily theses political disturbances did not lead to any political disturbances in this country that has a history that is checkered by incidents of political violence following elections.

Initial fears that the introduction of the new mixed member proportional system of elections may weaken the parliamentary system as parliamentary seats are distributed more thinly across the political spectrum and allow for frequent changes of government, which would further reinforce the fragmented nature of Lesotho’s politics, are not likely to materialize because of the majority in parliament that the LDC has managed to gain so far.

 

 

Even though the process of elections has gone relatively well, the threat of future political instability in this country can only be removed if a concerted effort is made by both internal and external political actors to understand the need for a change in Lesotho’s political culture. Given the political climate over the past year or so, this task could be almost impossible to achieve in the short term, because the run-up to the election has been marked by continued feuding within as well as between the leading parties. Personal exchanges of a virulent and public nature have been the stock-in-trade of leading members of the Lesotho political class since the resumption of democratic competition. This trend shows no signs of abating. Until the cycle is broken, a return to the past undemocratic dispensation that prevailed in Lesotho is not impossible. Such a turn of events will reverse the progress towards good governance and democracy that have been achieved to date, and this will surely augur badly for the Basotho and future African regional initiatives such as NEPAD. However, one hopes against hope, that a period of effective government will follow this political contest.

(Last updated: April 2003