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(HERALD, SAPA) Lesotho braces for crunch polls

Lesotho braces for crunch polls
Saturday, 26 May 2012 00:00

MASERU. — Lesotho votes today in the most hotly contested election since Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili came to power in a 1998 vote that sparked rioting and a South African military intervention. After 14 years in power, he has established himself as a towering figure in the mountainous kingdom, bordered on all sides by South Africa.

PM Mosisili has stayed in power through elections consistently endorsed by observers, even though Lesotho’s political disputes sometimes erupt in violence. He survived a 2009 military-style assault on his official residence that left four people dead.

Eight people are standing trial, and the precise motives remain unclear.
But signs of discontent with his rule are everywhere.

Within the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), which brought him to power in 1998, efforts to push Mosisili from the top spot provoked a dramatic split in February as he resigned from the party and launched his own Democratic Congress, taking a majority of parliamentarians with him.

Now the LCD is led by former communications minister Mothejoa Metsing, who led the movement to remove Mosisili as party leader.

The party’s leadership conference planned for January was cancelled at the last minute amid fears the dispute could turn violent.

The two rivals are running in a three-horse race with the opposition All Basotho Convention and its leader Tom Thabane.

Tomorrow’s vote is seen as a toss-up in one of the most fiercely fought campaigns since independence from Britain in 1966. — Sapa/AFP.

Labels: LESOTHO

posted by MrK @ 5:10 PM