Lesotho | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

The Kingdom of Lesotho is a small enclave of mountainous territory of 30,355 square kilometers (11,720 square miles) surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. Most of its population, estimated at approximately 2.2 million in 2002, dwells in the southwestern and southeastern lowlands and in the capital, Maseru.

Lesotho was known during colonial times as Basutoland. The country's founder, Moshoeshoe I (1786?–1870), succeeded by the mid-1830s in establishing his authority as king over the Basuto people, whose area of settlement extended to the north and west of the Caledon River, as well as to the southwest of Lesotho's modern boundaries. Other tribes migrating into the Basuto-dominated area were brought into a vassal relationship. However, from the late 1830s, the Basuto were affected by the migration of Boer farmers from the south, who were seeking to remove themselves from British rule over the Cape Colony. The Cape responded by signing a treaty with Moshoeshoe that recognized his sovereignty in 1843.

Clashes over cattle and land culminated in the First Basuto (or Senekal's) War between Basutoland and the Boers' Orange Free State between 1856 and 1858. This ended inconclusively, but as a result of further hostilities during the Second Basuto (or Sequiti) War from 1865 to 1866, the Basuto were forced to become subject to the Free State and to cede part of their territory. After the third Basuto War in 1867, however, the British governor of the Cape proclaimed Basutoland British territory. Basutoland was part of Cape Colony between 1871 and 1884, but was thereafter administered as a British High Commission Territory until it gained independence on October 4, 1966. Under British rule, Basutoland's primary function was to serve as a reserve of male migrant labor for the South African mines.

The nationalist movement had been spearheaded by the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP) of Ntsu Mokhehle (1918–1999), which won the first (indirect) general election in 1960. However, the BCP lost power in 1965 when Leabua Jonathan's (1914–1987) conservative Basotho National Party (BNP), which received the overt support of the powerful Catholic Church and was quietly favored by the apartheid government of South Africa, won the first universal suffrage election in 1966. Jonathan subsequently became prime minister and adopted a policy of cooperation with South Africa, whose backing proved vital in 1970 when, after losing a general election, the BNP declined to hand over power to the BCP. After a failed coup attempt in 1974, the principal leadership of the BCP fled into exile.

Jonathan's subservience to South Africa had left him isolated internationally. From 1975 he sought to overcome this by adopting a strategy of diplomatic opposition to apartheid. From 1976 onward, Lesotho became a haven for South African refugees, and Jonathan struck up a quiet but effective friendship with the African National Congress, the principal South African liberation movement. South Africa responded with a series of pressures, including an armed raid on Maseru in 1982, and by manipulating internal dissent. This culminated in a South Africanbacked coup in 1986 and a period of military rule, which was brought to a close with democratic elections in 1993 that resulted in a landslide victory for Mokhehle's BCP.

The BCP was unconstitutionally dismissed from power by the king (who was supported by the BNP and a mutinous army) in mid-1994 but was rapidly restored to power by pressure from the now-democratic South Africa and other southern African states. Subsequently, to defeat an internal party revolt, Prime Minister Mokhehle formed the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) in 1997. The LCD proceeded to win all seats in parliament under Pakalitha Mosisili (b. 1945), the aging Mokhehle's chosen successor, in an election in May 1998.

However, although the 1998 election had been fairly conducted, opposition parties refused to accept the LCD's landslide victory and responded by bringing the country to a standstill. Failure of intense talks to bring a resolution resulted in armed intervention by the South African National Defence Force, acting on behalf of the South African Development Community, in September 1998 after a plea for assistance from Mosisili. South Africa subsequently encouraged intricate negotiations between the LCD and the other political parties, which resulted in the adoption of a new mixed-member proportional electoral system and new elections in 2002. These were again won by the LCD, but the opposition parties gained fairer representation in parliament through seats they won through proportional representation.

Lesotho is a constitutional monarchy, under which the government is led by a prime minister, who is head of the party commanding a majority in the National Assembly. Since 2002 the army has been subordinated to constitutional authority, and there have been no further explicit challenges to democracy. Although controversy has always attended the conduct of elections, the new electoral system has introduced greater stability by providing for appropriate representation of opposition parties in parliament. The LCD dominates the political arena, but opposition parties can operate unhindered. Freedom of speech is encouraged by a variety of newspapers, competing trade unions movements, and a multiplicity of non-governmental organizations. The judiciary retains independence from government and has recently won international plaudits for finding international companies guilty of corruption during the construction phase of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.

The United Nations ranked Lesotho 132nd out of 173 countries on its Human Development Index for the year 2000. Although the decline of the mines in South Africa has resulted in the reduced absorption of migrant labor from Lesotho (down from nearly 127,000 in 1989 to around 75,000 by 2004), migrant remittances continue to provide approximately 45 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Subsistence farming provides from 10 to 15 percent of the GDP, and the remaining 40 percent is provided by a significant secondary sector that includes the sale of water to South Africa from the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and earnings from a rapidly expanding textile sector. Lesotho remains one of the poorest countries in Africa; although the proportion of people living in poverty has declined, these gains are now threatened by continuing fears of political instability, the decline of migrant labor, and the impact of HIV/AIDS.

Constitutional Monarchy; South Africa.

Gill, Stephen. A Short History of Lesotho. Morija, Lesotho: Morija Museum and Archives, 1993.

Southall, Roger. "Between Competing Paradigms: Post-Colonial Legitimacy in Lesotho." Journal of Contemporary African Studies 21, no. 2(2003):251–266.

Southall, Roger, and T. Petlane, eds. Democratisation and Demilitarisation in Lesotho: the General Election and its Aftermath. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa, 1995.

Weisfelder, R. Political Contention in Lesotho 1952–1965. Roma: Lesotho Institute of Southern African Studies, 1999.

This is the complete article, containing 1,086 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).