{"id":10677,"date":"2012-05-25T10:03:08","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T08:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/05\/lesotho-heads-for-tense-open-election\/"},"modified":"2012-05-25T10:03:08","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T08:03:08","slug":"lesotho-heads-for-tense-open-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/lesotho-heads-for-tense-open-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesotho heads for tense, open election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* &#8220;World&#8217;s highest country&#8221; on political knife-edge<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Fears of repeat of 1998 fighting<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Army promises not to get involved<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Ed Cropley<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, May 25 (Reuters) &#8211; Voters in the highland<br \/>\nAfrican kingdom of Lesotho go to the polls on Saturday in a<br \/>\nwide-open election that analysts say could end up without a<br \/>\nclear result, as happened in 1998 when South Africa had to send<br \/>\nin troops to quell major civil unrest.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Campaigning has been peaceful but a lack of opinion polls,<br \/>\nand Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili&#8217;s decision in February to<br \/>\nquit the ruling party and go it alone under the banner of the<br \/>\nnew Democratic Congress (DC) party, have kept the landlocked<br \/>\nnation&#8217;s two million people on tenterhooks.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South African pop stars have helped draw large crowds to<br \/>\npolitical rallies, livening up what is normally a sleepy<br \/>\nbackwater known mainly for being entirely surrounded by South<br \/>\nAfrica and having the continent&#8217;s best cross-country skiing.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It has brought a lot of excitement on the part of the<br \/>\npeople. We think there will be a high turnout because people are<br \/>\nvery interested to see what is going to happen,&#8221; former Malawi<br \/>\nPresident Bakili Muluzi, head of a Commonwealth observer team,<br \/>\ntold Reuters.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Results are expected to trickle into the capital, Maseru, on<br \/>\nSunday, and are most likely to leave Mosisili&#8217;s DC at the front<br \/>\nof the pack to form a new government but without a clear<br \/>\nmajority, analysts say.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* &#8220;World&#8217;s highest country&#8221; on political knife-edge * Fears of repeat of 1998 fighting * Army promises not to get involved By Ed Cropley JOHANNESBURG, May 25 (Reuters) &#8211; Voters in the highland African kingdom of Lesotho go to the polls on Saturday in a wide-open election that analysts say could end up without a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}