SUMMARY
The Military faction (Lesotho) was an armed group that fought the Government of Lesotho after the 1998 elections . The name is assigned by UCDP, in accordance with UCDP coding rules concerning groups that consist of a faction of a country’s military forces. While made up primarily by soldiers who had defected from the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF), these were joined by protesters from the opposition parties.
In the general elections in May 1998, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) won all but one of the parliamentary seats and subsequently gained governmental power, and Pakalitha Mosisili became prime minister. The opposition parties contested the results, claiming that the election had been fraudulent, even though they had been considered as free and fair by international observers at the time. The discontent grew over the following months and in August 1998, violent mass protest erupted in the capital Maseru, with supporters of the opposition clashing with government supporters on the streets. Initially, the army remained neutral and did not intervene on either side. However, this changed in early September, when it became clear that parts of the army sympathized with the opposition. Many of the junior officers supported the protestors, refused to intervene when ordered to disperse the demonstrators, consequently defecting. On 11 September, these mutinous soldiers arrested 22 senior officers and forced their commander, Lieutenant General Makhula Mosakeng, to broadcast his resignation over Radio Lesotho.
The group did not have any official leader or spokesperson, but still appeared to have a functioning command structure. It was estimated that between 1500 and 2000 defected LDF soldiers took part in the uprising, in addition, civilians armed by the defecting faction joined in the fighting against the government.
After troops from South Africa and Botswana entered Lesotho on 22 September 1998, upon the request of the Lesotho government, the military faction was defeated. During the following weeks, arrests of mutinous soldiers were made, while others returned to their barracks and handed in their weapons. As several senior military officers were reinstated, the command structures of the armed forces were restored.
