Maseru — The summit of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) Defence and Security Troika, held in Maseru on Sunday and Monday, wants Lesotho to draw up a "road map" to monitor progress achieved in overcoming the long drawn-out crisis that has followed the February 2007 parliamentary election.

The summit insisted that this road map should be given to the current chairperson of the SADC organ on political, defence and security cooperation, Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, by the end of March.

Thus, the Christian Council of Lesotho, which has been mediating in the crisis, supported by a team of SADC facilitators, should work, "in an inclusive and participatory process", to draw up a list containing the main points of disagreement, and possible ways of solving them.

This road map should also contain a calendar for amending the Lesotho Constitution and Electoral Law. The gaps in these documents are blamed in some quarters for precipitating the post-election crisis.

The Troika also promised that SADC will help Lesotho mobilise financial resources to support legal and constitutional changes - but no money will be forthcoming until the road map is delivered.

The summit stressed that the people of Lesotho need to find a lasting solution to the challenges they face "however difficult they may be, by resorting to dialogue, which requires tolerance and opening".

It called on all the political actors involved in the post-election dialogue to participate fully in the current proceedings and to place the interests of the Basotho nation at the centre of their attentions.

Guebuza chaired the summit, which was also attended by the former chairperson of the troika, King Mswati III of Swaziland, and by the Defence Minister of Zambia, Kalombo Mwanza, representing President Rupiah Banda, who is deputy chair of the troika.

The SADC leaders paid courtesy calls on King Letsie II and Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, and held consultations with the Christian Ciuncil, the Lesotho Independent Electoral Commission and represents of both the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), and the opposition parties.

The leader of the main opposition party, the All Basotho Convention (ABC), Thomas Thabane, asked the Troika for clear guidance on the work to be done to ensure that future crises can be avoided.

"We want the leaders of the Troika to leave here with clear instructions about what should be done", he said. "We want to go to parliament to amend the Electoral Law and even the Constitution so that the next elections are fair and transparent".

He claimed that the crisis results from a form of electing the country's parliament "which is an innovation in Africa".

The Lesotho model mixes the first-past-the-post system in single member constituencies (plagiarized from British colonialism) with proportional representation. 80 members are elected from the constituencies, and 40 from party lists by proportional representation.

Thabane made the odd claim that the ruling party had grabbed 21 of the PR seats that really belonged to the opposition. In fact, neither the LCD nor the ABC stood any candidates at all for the 40 seats allocated by PR, and preferred to boost the chances of minor parties allied to them - the National Independence Party (NIP) in the case of the LCD and the Lesotho Workers Party (LWC) in the case of the ABC. The NIP took 17 of the PR seats and the LWC ten.