Lesotho poll likely to hang

sparking a South African military intervention to restore order.
Mosisili threw open the race when he resigned from the ruling party amid a leadership squabble in February. He’s running for re-election under the banner of his new Democratic Congress.
With 14 of the country’s 80 districts reporting, Mosisili had claimed only four seats. The main opposition All Basotho Convention had claimed nine, all in the urban strongholds of party leader Tom Thabane.
The initial results sparked jubilant celebrations outside the vote counting centre where hundreds of his supporters sang and danced.
The Independent Electoral Commission said final results should be in by today, but the early returns indicated an electorate sharply divided among the three main parties.
Most of Lesotho’s two million people live in remote mountain villages, which have supported Mosisili in past polls.
The question now is whether they will support him, or the party he once led, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy.
LCD is now headed by former communications minister Mothejoa Metsing, who led the movement to remove Mosisili as party leader.
“We are going for a coalition. I think ABC will partner with LCD,” said Malekhase Moea (26), who works for a cell phone company.
“What we want to see is development, not people enriching themselves in the government,” he said.
Personal feuds among the three main party leaders have largely drowned out the worries of most ordinary Basotho. More than half of the nation’s two million people live in poverty.
Despite the peaceful campaign, many still remember Mosisili’s rise to power in 1998 elections, which were endorsed by observers but disputed by opposition protests.
Protests turned so violent that South Africa led a regional military intervention to restore order.
Former Zambian president Rupiah Banda, heading an observer mission for the Johannesburg-based Election Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, endorsed this weekend’s polls as largely free and fair.
“The will of the Basotho has been freely expressed,” he told reporters yesterday.
“The mission encourages all parties to accept the results and to resort to appropriate channels to resolve disputes.”
Voters are choosing lawmakers to represent 80 constituencies. Another 40 seats in parliament will be awarded under a proportional vote system. — AFP.