Regional Observer Mission to Lesotho 2007 National Assembly Elections

Interim statement

Maseru, Monday 19 February 2007

Introduction

At the invitation of the Independent Electoral Commission of Lesotho (IEC), EISA deployed an observer mission in Lesotho to observe the National Assembly elections which were held on Saturday 17 February 2007.

The general objectives of the mission conform to EISA's mission of promoting credible elections and democratic governance in Africa. The mission sought in particular to determine:

If the conditions existed for the conduct of elections that would allow the people of Lesotho to freely express their will and their choice;
If the elections would be conducted in accordance with the legal and constitutional framework for elections that is established in the Kingdom of Lesotho;
If the electoral process was conducted in conformity with EISA/ECF Principles for Election Management, Monitoring and Observation in the SADC Region (PEMMO).

This statement presents our preliminary findings and recommendations and covers the pre-election phase, the voting and counting of votes at the polling stations. EISA will continue to follow the post-election processes and developments and will produce a final detailed report with a more systematic analysis of the process and definitive recommendations for the consolidation of democracy in Lesotho.

About EISA

EISA is a non-profit organisation established in June 1996. The vision of the organisation is to promote credible elections and democratic governance in Africa. EISA is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and has field offices in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Mozambique.

Observation of elections is a key component of EISA's work as it allows for the collection of relevant data and information on electoral practices. Equally important, election observation provides an opportunity for mission members to acquire and exchange experiences with respect to the organisation and conduct of democratic elections and to learn from the host country.

Composition of the Mission

The mission was led by Sir Ketumile Masire, former President of Botswana, who was assisted by EISA Executive Director, Denis Kadima, who was the mission's Deputy Leader. The mission consisted of 17 members, including representatives of electoral commissions; civil society organisations (CSOs) and academic institutions from Botswana, DRC, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Method of Work

EISA's mission forms part of the organisation's ongoing support to the democratic process in Lesotho which began with its contribution to the design of the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system currently in use in the Kingdom, and continued with the observation and support of the National Assembly elections of 1998 and 2002 as well as the Local Government Elections of 2005.

The Mission was a short term observation assignment. It began with the deployment of a pre-election assessment mission which was in the country from 9-12 January 2007 and was followed by the arrival of the mission's advance team on 8 February 2007. The team of observers arrived in the country on 11 February and undertook the following activities:

Examination of the legal framework governing elections in Lesotho;
Meetings with electoral stakeholders, namely the IEC, political parties, civil society organisations, media groups at national and district levels and representatives of the diplomatic and donor community.
Observation of the campaigning, including media coverage of the elections.
Deployment to the districts and observation of voting and counting at polling stations.
The EISA Mission was deployed to the following districts:
- Butha Buthe
- Leribe
- Mafeteng
- Maseru
- Mokhotlong
- Qacha's Nek
- Thaba Tseka

On Election Day, EISA Teams observed voting in 84 polling stations and counting in six polling stations.

Preliminary findings of the Mission

After analysing the observations made by its different teams deployed on the ground and basing itself on norms and guidelines contained in the PEMMO, the EISA Mission has made the following findings:

The Political Context in Lesotho

The country was facing an increase in suspected politically motivated killings and assassination attempts which created insecurity within the nation as the election drew closer. The elections were also held at a time of heightened political activity and increased public and voter interest in the elections as a result of the floor crossing which took place in parliament and the emergence of new political parties and alliances. The prospect of a hung parliament and the disruption of government business led to pressure to dissolve parliament and pre-empt the looming political crisis created by the floor crossing.

Announcement of the Election Date, and the Election Calendar

Most stakeholders expressed the view that the dissolution of parliament whilst it was in recess and the subsequent announcement of the election should have been done with more consultation with the stakeholders who were expecting an election but not at the time it was announced. We recognise that it is the constitutional prerogative of the government to initiate the dissolution of parliament and call for an election. However, because the country does not have a history of snap elections, the government could have used its discretion to ascertain the state of readiness of the electoral commission.

The election calendar which was announced, compressed a number of key electoral activities, including the all important registration of voters and inspection of the electoral lists, into a short period of time. The calendar also limited the time available to potential new registrants to register and inspect the list, particularly those who are domiciled outside of the country. Critically a number of key activities took place around the Christmas and New Year period and thus limited public participation as well as the responsiveness of service providers who were not available because of holidays. It is the mission's view that the elections would have proceeded better if the setting of dates had taken account of the holiday season.

We recommend that in future:

Stakeholders should be alert to the possibility of an early election
Crucial election related activities should not be organised over the festive or any other holiday season.

Voter Registration and Electoral Lists

The mission noted that Lesotho follows a system of continuous voter registration which is supplemented by specific voter registration campaigns around election time. However the lists released on 25 December 2006 were said to have been to a large extent a replication of the lists used in 2002 and did not reflect many of the new registrations. Furthermore this list reportedly also contained the names of dead people. This suggests that the electoral lists were not being continuously updated. This was then exacerbated by the election calendar which required massive registration and data entry which the computer system was unable to accommodate.

We note that the IEC subsequently undertook to repair and revise the electoral list. However the final lists still contained imperfections and some voters went to vote without the voters' cards. Although the commission distributed these on Election Day, not all the voters signed for the cards collected and this could be open to abuse.

We recommend that in future the IEC's electoral lists should be continuously updated to avoid system overload at election time.
Where voters' cards are going to be distributed on the Election Day, the commission should ensure that voters are fully informed of this distribution.

The Electoral System and Political Party coalitions

The 2007 elections marked the second time that Lesotho used the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system and thus it was also a test of the sustainability of the system. We recall that the system was introduced to reduce and diffuse political and election related conflict resulting from the under-representation of some political groups. The mission noted that some of the alliances have the potential to abuse the spirit of the MMP system by negating its compensatory mechanism. An example was the case of National Independence Party (NIP) where it was alleged that the alliance partners manipulated the list that was submitted to the IEC.

We commend the move towards consensus based politics through alliance building and urge political parties to respect and uphold the spirit of the MMP system.

Civic and Voter Education

Given that the elections were a surprise to most stakeholders not least of all the voters, we note and commend the efforts made by all the stakeholders to inform voters about the election date itself. However we also consider that the election period was not adequate for stakeholders to deliver the education required to reinforce voters' understanding of the electoral system as well as how to assess the candidates.

The mission recommends that civic and voter education should be continuous.

Party Funding and Campaign Financing

The mission noted that Lesotho does not have provision for funding political parties in-between elections and that even the provisions for campaign financing are not clear. Political parties complained that the funding for campaigning was provided late in the campaign and in insufficient amounts. Given the shortness of the campaign period for the election, most parties were severely limited in terms of their campaigning and accusations were made of incumbents' abuse of government resources. Some parties claimed that they could not field candidates in all constituencies because of the lack of funding as contestants had to pay for their own campaigns. The mission also noted that parties did not disclose the sources of their funding as required by the law.

It is the mission's recommendation that:

Electoral stakeholders in Lesotho should consider and determine the amount and timeliness of campaign and election related funding for parties, using an agreed upon formula.
The relevant authorities should also enforce the law on the disclosure of campaigning funding.

The Participation of Women

The level of women registration was high but few women stood for the elections. Most parties did not have a strategy to promote women leaders in their parties citing various reasons including lack of time to mobilise women and lack of interest on the part of women themselves.

We recommend that parties consider using quotas to increase the participation of women, including the possibility of quotas for women on all party lists.

The Media

Most parties were of the opinion that access to the media, particularly the public media, was inadequate and that the government was abusing the media to gain an unfair advantage over other political parties. This was particularly critical because although Lesotho has a number of media outlets, they do not all reach the outlying districts which only the public media does and therefore it becomes more important that the public media is accessible to all contestants. However the parties did concede that in the last three weeks of campaigning the national public media had responded to their complaints and the coverage had improved although it was still not fully satisfactory.

The mission recommends that in future airtime be allocated to all contesting parties and candidates in an equitable manner from the beginning of the campaigning period.

The Campaign Process

The mission notes and commends the peaceful environment within which the election was held. All parties and candidates were free to express themselves and there were no unreasonable impediments to campaigning. Reports were received however, that some of the political leaders traded insults which did not support the spirit of competition.

The Poll

Election materials

The mission noted the use of transparent ballot boxes which went a long way to enhance the transparency of the process. However a number of voters were confused about which box to place the different ballots. In a few stations, presiding officers were still expecting some electoral materials such as envelopes in the middle of the voting day. This may be explained by the fact that the IEC did not have enough transport.

The mission recommends that:

Ballot boxes should be colour coded to make casting the ballot easier for the voters.
The supply of election materials could be expedited if more vehicles were provided for distribution of election materials or if the distribution of materials could start much earlier.

Voting

The polling stations provided were adequate for the day and generally speaking, polling officials conducted themselves in a satisfactory manner. We noted though, that not all the voting procedures were applied uniformly. Voter processing would have been quicker with a different layout of polling stations and removing some of the steps in the voting process taken by the voter, such as receiving the two ballots separately.

Although in the morning there were long queues at some stations, overall, voter turnout at the stations visited by members of the Mission was low. The mission noted also the presence of many party agents in the polling stations we visited and that these agents were trained at the same time as electoral officials. We commend the application of this measure to enhance transparency. We also noted and commend the fact that many of the polling officials were female.

The Mission noted with satisfaction that voting took place generally in a peaceful atmosphere. The mission recommends:

An evaluation of the training and instructions given to the polling officials.
A review of the voting procedures in order to quicken the flow of voting and the processing of the voters.

Secrecy of the Ballot

The mission noted that the requirement to record the voter's registration number on the ballot paper counterfoil and the submission of a marked ballot paper to the polling official for the detachment of the counterfoil have the potential to undermine the secrecy of the ballot.

The mission recommends: A review of the counterfoil procedures in order to enhance the secrecy of the ballot.

Counting at the Polling Stations

Generally the counting process took place immediately after the end of voting. In some stations, the counting went on for a long time. The Commission made provision for lighting in most polling stations by providing gas lamps. However in a few polling stations counting was postponed until the next day because of inadequate lighting.

Some polling officials appeared not to be conversant with the steps to follow during the counting process and in some instances the reconciliation of ballots was not done. However the counting took place by consensus and there were no objections to the results at the polling stations that the Mission observed.

The mission recommends that training of polling officials be reviewed to improve the application of counting procedures.

Conclusion

On the basis of its observations thus far and using the guidelines enshrined in the PEMMO, the EISA Election Observer Mission concludes that the Lesotho National Assembly Elections were conducted in a manner that, to a large extent, allowed the Basotho people to express their will freely, notwithstanding the challenges created by a 'snap' election.

At the time of the release of this statement the tabulation, transmission and announcement of results are in progress. EISA will continue to monitor these processes until the final allocation of all the seats is complete. We encourage the people of Lesotho to continue to demonstrate their political maturity and to maintain peace and tolerance during this crucial phase of the electoral process.

EISA wishes to thank the Basotho people for their hospitality and cooperation which made the work of the mission successful and enjoyable.

Sir Ketumile Masire, Mission Leader
Mr Denis Kadima, Deputy Mission Leader