Parliamentary elections in Lesotho 1998

The 1998 parliamentary elections in Lesotho took place on May 23, 1998 in the Kingdom of Lesotho . The National Assembly was elected, which elects the Prime Minister and thus the government. The distribution of the 80 mandates was determined by majority voting.

Starting position

In the last elections in 1993, the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP) under Ntsu Mokhehle won all 65 seats. In 1994, the government under Mokhehle was ousted by putschists for around four weeks. In 1997 Mokhehle left the BCP with around two-thirds of the MPs and founded the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD). Mokhehle retired at the end of the legislative period for reasons of age. Bethuel Pakalitha Mosisili was the top candidate for the LCD .

836,516 eligible voters were registered before the elections.

procedure

Candidates from twelve parties and independents were available for election. The election took place on May 23, 1998 (Saturday) in 79 constituencies. In the constituency of Moyeni , a by-election was required due to the death of a candidate , which took place on August 1, 1998.

Result

584,740 people (69.7% of those eligible to vote) - excluding the voters in the by-election - took part in the election. Thanks to majority voting, the LCD received 79 seats (including one in the by-election), the Basotho National Party (BNP) one seat. The LCD received 60.6% of the vote, the BNP 24.2%, the BCP 10.6% , the Marematlou Freedom Party (MFP) 1.3% and other parties and independents 3.1%.

The elections were recognized by independent observers as free and fair. Mosilisi was elected by Parliament as the new Prime Minister.

consequences

After the 1998 elections, there was a constitutional crisis initiated by some defeated opposition parties, in the course of which public order came to a standstill. Only with the deployment of South African and Botswana troops, Operation Boleas, could the democratically elected government be reinstated. As a result, the Interim Political Authority (IPA) was formed, which was made up of two representatives from each of the twelve parties and subsequently adopted a new electoral law, which to this day consists of a combined majority and proportional representation .

Web links

Results on the website of EISA (English)

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c Results on the EISA website , accessed on February 12, 2016
^ Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 98.
^ Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 96.

[eisa-1] Results on the EISA website , accessed on February 12, 2016

[2] Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 98.

[3] Scott Rosenberg, Richard W. Weisfelder, Michelle Frisbie-Fulton: Historical Dictionary of Lesotho. Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland / Oxford 2004, ISBN 978-0-8108-4871-9 , p. 96.