2015 Lesotho Parliament Election February 28,2015

 

A general election in Lesotho was held on February  28,2015 for all 120 seats of the National Assembly, the lower house of the Parliament of Lesotho more than two years ahead of schedule due to the 2014 political crisis

More than 1.2 million voters had been registered by the Independent Electoral Commission.

The 120 members of the National Assembly are elected in two groups; 80 are elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting, with 40 elected by proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency

Backgroung to the election
After the 2012 election, Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili's Democratic Congress failed to attain a majority; and thus a coalition government was formed among the three opposition parties: All Basotho Convention (ABC), Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and the Basotho National Party (BCP). The government was led by ABC's Tom Thabane, who served as the new Prime Minister; whilst the leader of LCD, Mothetjoa Metsing was appointed as the Deputy Prime Minister.

Following political tensions and the suspension of the National Assembly over the controversial change of the head of the army from Lieutenant General Kennedy Tlali Kamoli to Lieutenant General Maaparankoe Mahao, an attempted coup d'état^{[citation needed]} forced Prime Minister Tom Thabane to flee the country. He then returned under cover of South African and Namibian police, who guarded him around-the-clock