AP News, February 17th, 2007
A new opposition party mounted a stiff challenge in national elections Saturday, promising to end hunger and poverty in this tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa _ one of the world's poorest and most AIDS-ravaged countries.
Former government minister Tom Thabane, who defected from the ruling party in October to form the rival All Basotho Convention party, had polled strongly among the country's disaffected young people in the weeks leading up to the election.
Turnout among Lesotho's youth was high Saturday, as people traveled for miles on foot or horseback along remote rocky paths and waited patiently in the searing heat to cast their votes at 2,500 polling stations.
"We ... need change for the betterment of our lives," said 34-year-old Tsetang Makakole as he waited to vote at a high school in the capital. "The past governments had forgotten about us, had forgotten about our aspirations" as young people.
Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili had urged voters to reward his Lesotho Congress for Democracy party for bringing peace and stability to a country with a violent and troubled past. He promised to speed up delivery of services and boost economic growth.
But Thabane tapped into frustrations over the government's lack of progress, urging people to vote for him to solve the myriad problems the country of 2 million people has faced since independence from Britain in 1966.
"I am confident that I will win the elections because of the people," Thabane said as he cast his vote at a polling station just outside Maseru. "Everybody wants change and we are the symbol of change."
Lesotho, which is entirely surrounded by South Africa, is heavily dependent on earnings from migrant workers in South African mines and on subsistence farming. It has few resources _ apart from water _ and its work force has been hard hit by HIV and AIDS, which afflict an estimated one in five adults.
The country's political past has also been turbulent. The military staged a coup in 1986, and the army installed King Letsie III on the throne in 1987 after his father was forced into exile. Troops from South Africa and Botswana then briefly occupied Lesotho in 1998 following unrest in the wake of disputed elections.
The Lesotho Congress for Democracy, which has governed for the past decade, won a landslide victory in 2002 elections that were deemed free and fair.
Mofoka Mofoka said he would vote for the ruling party because he was grateful for its leadership. "I have come here to make sure that I bring back my party to power because it has done a lot for me," he said.
Election monitors said they had no reports of intimidation or harassment and there had only been minor logistical glitches. Observer missions from the African Union and international organizations were deployed across the country to monitor the vote.
