Lesotho – what is going on?

It is a "long and winding road" to stability and peace in Lesotho.

This is my third blog post about the current situation in Lesotho. More and more I feel I have to state upfront:

I am writing under correction.

Lesotho is only a few hours away. But the news I get through media (both old and new) are confusing. Has there been a military coup or not? I don’t know.

Al Jazeera writes about the conflict between Lesotho's deputy prime minister and leader of the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) Mothetjoa Metsing and the Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane, leader of the All Basotho Congress (ABC). Together with a third party – the Basotho National Party (BNP) - they form a coalition.

The problem, according to Al Jazeera, is (and this I think really happened some months ago):

Thabane himself announced a nine-month suspension of parliament, effectively escaping a no-confidence vote that would have seen him ousted.

The political crisis that came out of this culminated on Saturday, when soldiers surrounded police headquarters and also shut down radio stations for hours. But was this a coup d'état? Al Jazeera writes about the events on Saturday:

… what may, or may not, have been a coup …

Nevertheless, the Prime Minister fled to South Africa. And on Sunday and Monday the SADC called the parties to talks. BBC reports that the SADC

… have rejected calls by Lesotho's exiled Prime Minister Thomas Thabane for the immediate deployment of troops to help restore order in his country …

This is indeed the right decision. It seems as if the solution rather lies in reopening the parliament, as an analyst says to Al Jazeera:

You just need to reopen parliament. Once it opens, the normal constitutional procedures can be followed to change the government.