MASERU, May 28 (AFP) - The ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy swept back to power on Tuesday after the southern African kingdom's peaceful weekend poll, with provisional election results giving the LCD a majority in the 120-seat parliament.
Lesotho's Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) announced Tuesday morning that the LCD had won its 61st constituency seat out of 62 counted, securing it a parliamentary majority.
Eighty seats are being attributed on a first-past-the-post constituency system and 40 based on proportional representation.
"On the basis of these provisional results the LCD now has a majority in parliament," IEC commissioner Mokhele Likate told AFP on the third day of counting.
"We are waiting for the receipts of the originals to confirm finally that there is no tampering," he added.
The only other party to take a constituency seat was the Lesotho People's Congress (LPC), which won in its stronghold, Maseru, capital of the tiny mountain country threatened by famine and hard hit by high unemployment and HIV/AIDS rates.
These results almost mirror a May 1998 poll, which was violently contested by the opposition and elements of the army, ending in military intervention by South Africa and Botswana, loss of life and widespread destruction.
But this time round an expanded parliament and the new electoral system, giving greater representation to smaller parties, is expected to avert problems.
The new mixed constituency and proportional system puts the Basotho National Party (BNP) into parliament as the main opposition even though it has not won a single constituency seat, including that of its leader, Major General Justin Metsing Lekhanya, in the capital.
Lekhanya, reacting to the LCD's majority, told AFP that the results would be valid only after an audit had been conducted.
"The IEC has agreed in principle ... and after the audited results I will accept them," he promised on Tuesday.
LCD leader, Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, was in a meeting at State House and not available for comment when the party's victory became certain, his office told AFP.
The LCD has 54 percent of the votes counted so far in the proportional representation system, followed by the BNP with 22 percent and the LPC with 6.5 percent.
The total proportional seats will be calculated through a complex formula when all the constituency seats have been allocated.
Lesotho, an enclave within South Africa, is the first African country to use the mixed voting system.
The disputed elections in 1998 were based on a first-past-the-poll system with the LCD winning 79 out of a total of 80 seats in parliament, with the BNP securing the other.
Rejecting that outcome four years ago, the BNP was involved in the unrest that escalated for four months after the poll, ending in some 75 deaths in September 1998 when the foreign troops intervened.
This time Lekhanya, who headed a military junta from 1986 to 1993, again challenged the results saying his auditors had found patterns indicating "pre-determined election results".
He called on his supporters, however, to remain calm.
"We are aware of the concerns expressed by our people and call on them to remain calm," Lekhanya urged.
International observer missions declared the weekend voting, which was monitored with interest after flawed polls in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Madagascar, had been free and fair in Lesotho.
Final results are expected Thursday or Friday.
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