By Matṧeliso Phulane
The Lesotho Council of NGO’S (LNC) says voters encountered a myriad of challenges that may have resulted in a low turnout at last Friday general elections.
In a statement on Monday this week, LCD said this is according to its preliminary investigations.
Among others, the LCN Observer Mission noted that, despite voters’ names appearing on the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) website, their names did not appear both on the IEC-held voters’ roll and the ones in party agents’ possession.
Apart from that, the mission observed that the IEC has been inclined to use schools as voting stations. Some were not accessible for physical disabled people. This is because most of schools’ buildings did not have rails to cater for disabled people.
This was prevalent in places such as Leribe, Mohale’s Hoek, Maseru and Berea. At Thamae LEC Primary Schools and NUL in particular, some polling stations were on the upper floor and could only be accessed by stairs.
The main mandate of LCN was to assess the level of compliance with national legal frameworks, regional, continental and international instruments on credible, democratic and peaceful elections.
