Yearbook 2008
Lesotho. A disagreement over the distribution of the mandate following the 2007 parliamentary elections persisted. The conflict concerned the spread of the third mandate to be distributed under a proportionate system. Botswana’s former president Ketumile Masire, who was called in to mediate, noted that he had failed to get the government or opposition to budge an inch from his positions.
While politicians tired, no solution seemed to be found to Lesotho’s difficult environmental and livelihood problems. After three years without normal rainfall, up to 60 percent of the wells drilled in the lowlands are calculated and 30 percent of all water sources in rural areas have dried out. Sharp price increases on basic foods exacerbated the supply crisis. Staple-fed corn flour was estimated to have increased in price by 55 percent in one year, the price of cooking oil had doubled and kerosene becoming 80 percent more expensive at the same time.
- ABBREVIATIONFINDER: Click to see the meanings of 2-letter acronym and abbreviation of LS in general and in geography as Lesotho in particular.
Population 2008
According to Countryaah reports, the population of Lesotho in 2008 was 1,995,470, ranking number 146 in the world. The population growth rate was -0.010% yearly, and the population density was 65.7306 people per km2.
Lesotho
Independent kingdom surrounded by the territory of South Africa. The Lesotho slopes from the Draghi Mountains to the E towards the western plateau. It is crossed from NE to SW by the Orange River. Moshoeshoe I united in a kingdom (ca. 1818) Sotho-speaking communities who took refuge on the heights of the od. Lesotho in the period of the Zulu expansion (➔ mfecane). British protectorate with the name of Basutoland (1868), it was annexed to the Cape Colony (1871). He returned to the separate British administration in 1884, thus avoiding incorporation into the South African Union. It gained independence within the Commonwealth under the name of Lesotho in 1966. In 1970 J. Leabua Jonathan, leader of the Basotho national party, seized power, ousting King Moshoeshoe II. For years it was under the power of military juntas (1986-91), subject to the conditioning of racist South Africa. In 1990 the military deposed the king, replacing his son Letsie. A tortuous democratization process was induced by popular demonstrations and the end of apartheid in South Africa. In 1995 Moshoeshoe was re-established, but the following year he died and Letsie III returned to the throne. The elections of 1998, 2002 and 2007 were won by the Congress for democracy of B. Pakalitha Mosisili. Lesotho remains a very poor country, very affected by AIDS and with an economy heavily dependent on remittances from immigrants to South Africa and the exploitation of hydroelectric resources.