Lesotho

Lesotho’s military government allowed free legislative elections in 1993. The BCP won every seat and elected Mokhehle prime minister. However, in August 1994 King Letsie, claiming to be responding to popular dissatisfaction with the Mokhehle administration, dissolved the cabinet. After other African leaders, including South African president Nelson Mandela, Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, and Botswanan president Quett Ketumile Joni Masire, criticized Letsie, he restored power to Mokhehle in September. In 1995 Letsie abdicated and restored the crown to his father, Moshoeshoe II, who pledged to uphold the constitution. On January 15, 1996, Moshoeshoe II was killed in an automobile accident on his way back to Maseru from inspecting his cattle herds. Letsie succeeded him, taking the throne once again as Letsie III.

In 1997, in the midst of a power struggle within the BCP, Mokhehle resigned from the party and formed the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) while retaining the office of prime minister. Mokhehle retired from politics before the May 1998 legislative elections and was succeeded as LCD leader by Pakalitha Mosisili. The LCD won all but two seats in the National Assembly, which then had a total of 80 members. Mosisili became prime minister. Opposition groups protested the election results, and political tension intensified in August, when members of the army joined the protestors. South African troops intervened in September to prevent a coup but met with fierce resistance from rebels and from ordinary citizens, many of whom viewed the intervention as an invasion. Rioting and looting swept Maseru, destroying much of the city. LCD leaders and opposition parties worked out an agreement in October to hold new elections to the National Assembly, expanded to 120 members.

In these elections, held in 2002, the LCD won 77 seats in the legislature, and the Basotho National Party (BNP) won 21 seats. The LCD splintered in October 2006, with defections to a newly formed opposition party, the All Basotho Convention (ABC), leaving the LCD with only 61 members in the legislature. However, early legislative elections held in 2007 returned 77 seats to the LCD. Opposition parties organized a general strike to dispute the results, which they claimed were rigged in the LCD’s favor.