2015 Lesotho general 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.[7]

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 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. Under the auspices of the SADC, mediation led by South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa resulted in a call for an early election. The national elections took place on 28 February.[8] Thabane was backed by the national police, while his deputy Mothetjoa Metsing was backed by the army, which refused to recognise the change in army leadership.

On 17 October, the National Assembly reconvened in a bid to avert the political crisis, with Thabane's advisor Tumisang Mosotho saying "It’s a milestone. We want to hope this is the first step in the right direction, in liberating our country from the danger that has surrounded us these past few months".[9] Senate Chief Whip Khoabane Theko said: "This is what we can call maybe the beginning of the process that takes us to the elections, because we are going to have a budget and maybe deliberate other laws... ahead of our elections from here on".[10]

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. Voters cast one vote[11] and the 40 proportional seats are allocated in a compensatory system, in order to reflect the number of votes received by each party, making it a variant of the mixed-member proportional electoral system.[12]

Thabane said that he would run again seeking a new mandate after signing the Maseru Facilitation Declaration.[13]

Election observer missions were deployed to the kingdom from the African Union, the Commonwealth of Nations and SADC; and were led by former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, former Botswana President Festus Mogae and South African International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane respectively.[2]

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated the citizens for conducting a peaceful election.[14] The SADC Election Observer Mission concluded that the elections were "peaceful, transparent, credible, free and fair."[2]

The Democratic Congress formed a coalition government with the Lesotho Congress for Democracy and five other smaller parties as no party achieved an outright majority. Pakalitha Mosisili took over as Prime Minister whilst incumbent Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing retained his position.[6]

Party		Votes	%	Seats
				Constituency	PR	Total	+/–
	Democratic Congress	218,573	38.37	37	10	47	–1
	All Basotho Convention	215,022	37.75	40	6	46	+16
	Lesotho Congress for Democracy	56,467	9.91	2	10	12	–14
	Basotho National Party	31,508	5.53	1	6	7	+2
	Popular Front for Democracy	9,829	1.73	0	2	2	–1
	Reformed Congress of Lesotho	6,731	1.18	0	2	2	New
	National Independent Party	5,404	0.95	0	1	1	–1
	Marematlou Freedom Party	3,413	0.60	0	1	1	0
	Basutoland Congress Party	2,721	0.48	0	1	1	0
	Lesotho People's Congress	1,951	0.34	0	1	1	0
	Basotho Democratic National Party	1,901	0.33	0	0	0	–1
	All Democratic Cooperation	1,689	0.30	0	0	0	0
	Basotho Batho Democratic Party	1,285	0.23	0	0	0	–1
	Hamore Democratic Party	1,265	0.22	0	0	0	New
	Baena	1,259	0.22	0	0	0	New
	Lekhotla La Mekhoa le Moetlo	1,008	0.18	0	0	0	0
	Community Freedom Movement	941	0.17	0	0	0	New
	Progressive Democrats	751	0.13	0	0	0	New
	Basotho African National Congress	582	0.10	0	0	0	New
	Lesotho Workers' Party	577	0.10	0	0	0	–1
	Tsebe Social Democrats	531	0.09	0	0	0	New
	African Unity Movement	390	0.07	0	0	0	0
	White Horse Party	174	0.03	0	0	0	0
	Independents	5,651	0.99	0	–	0	0
Total		569,623	100.00	80	40	120	0
Valid votes		569,623	98.66
Invalid/blank votes		7,754	1.34
Total votes		577,377	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		1,209,192	47.75
Source: IEC Lesotho, Election Passport

• IEC Lesotho