Screening Political Party Candidates and the Implications for Electoral Performance: The Case of the Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) in Lesotho’s 2022 General Elections The article concludes that the 2022 elections serve to confirm a longstanding problem of inadequate rules and consistent practice relating to the transition and formation of government. The article uses content analysis – the examination of primary and secondary documents – to analyse the activities that took place during the transition and formation of a new government in the 2022 elections. This article examines these inadequacies in the context of the 2022 elections. Likewise, the government’s position between the dissolution of Parliament and the forming of a new government is often opaque and precarious. While the Constitution provides for the appointment of the prime minister – the king appoints as prime minister a member of the National Assembly who will have the confidence of the House – there are no rules stipulating how the confidence of the House is to be determined. Within one month after the elections, a new Parliament must sit. In terms of the Constitution, once Parliament is dissolved, elections must be held within three months. The end of the parliamentary term effectively means the end of the government. Since the country uses a parliamentary system, the government depends on the confidence of the National Assembly and the life of the government is pegged to the life of Parliament. Like all other elections since 2012, the 2022 elections were inconclusive: no political party received an outright majority to form a government. The 2022 elections have once again shone the spotlight on these longstanding problems. These problems can be attributed, by and large, to the lack of adequate rules and consistent constitutional practice. The process of transitioning from one government to another and forming a new government after elections in Lesotho is often fraught with controversy and uncertainty. The Transition and Formation of Government after Lesotho’s 2022 Elections Pulane Selinah Mahase and Motlamelle Anthony Kapa The paper argues that compared to previous elections from 2012, the IEC does not seem to have been adequately prepared to manage the October 2022 elections, and as such, it had a poor performance this time. Adopting a qualitative approach that relies on interviews with purposefully selected respondents and document analysis, this paper assesses these two main aspects of the IEC. During the polls on 7 October 2022, the role of the IEC came to the fore in terms of the extent of their preparedness for and actual performance in managing the electoral processes. There has been little attention to the role of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) as the key player with the constitutional mandate to ensure credible, free, and fair electoral processes. Most assessments and analyses of Lesotho’s elections have focused on the post-election conflict. The Independent Electoral Commission in Lesotho’s 2022 Parliamentary Elections: Preparedness and Performance
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