Lesotho’s prime minister and cabinet resign
Supporters of Thomas Thabane and the All Basotho Convention party celebrate in Maseru on May 27, 2012, a day after the people of Lesotho went to the polls in National Assembly Elections. Voting unfolded smoothly across the tiny kingdom where most people live as farmers in villages separated by towering mountain ranges, which many crossed by foot to reach their polling stations.
Lesotho’s Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili and his cabinet resigned today after Mosisili’s Democratic Congress (DC) party failed to win an absolute majority in the country’s May 26 parliamentary elections, Agence France-Presse reported.
"The prime minister resigned … this morning and has submitted his resignation letter to His Majesty King Letsie III," the DC’s deputy leader Monyane Moleleki said today, reading a statement issued by the government secretary's office, AFP reported.
The DC only captured 48 seats in the 120-seat parliament, AFP reported. Today, his opponents announced they had united to form a coalition government, BBC News reported.
More from GlobalPost: Lesotho elections: Voters head to the polls
Tom Thabane, leader of the All Basotho Convention (ABC) party, said ABC would combine its 30 seats with the 26 seats won by the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) as well as seats held by the smaller Basotho National Party, the Popular Fund for Democracy and the Marematlou Freedom Party, AFP reported.
"We are going to have a vast majority in parliament," Thabane told the BBC's “Network Africa” program.
Thabane told the BBC that his priorities are "poverty, lack of jobs, lack of school opportunities, absence of schools at the right places, lack of proper infrastructure, particularly health services.” He added, "We have gone way below what we were a few years ago, and that's inexplicable. We put power in the hands of the wrong people, and we are taking it away from them."
Mosisili has served as Lesotho’s prime minister for 14 years. A Gallup poll last month ranked him among Africa's five most despised leaders, with only 39 percent of poll takers approving of his performance, AFP reported.
Mosisili will stay in office until a new Prime Minister takes over within 14 days, the Associated Press reported.
More from GlobalPost: Going for the hajj? Yeah, there’s an app for that