Lesotho's State Council on Wednesday announced the approval of a new three-member Independent Electoral Commission to prepare the country for fresh elections expected to be held sometime this year, media reports said.
Abel Leshele Thoahlane, a former finance minister in the military regime before the 1993 elections, has been named as chairman of the IEC and Mafole Sematlane and Mokhele Rantsie Likate as commissioners.
The previous IEC was dissolved in January after opposition parties in the multi-party Interim Political Authority (IPA) expressed dissatisfaction with its performance during the 1998 elections. The opposition parties accused the commissioners of bias towards the Lesotho Congress of Democrats (LCD)
which won all but one of the 80 parliamentary seats.
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