59-431: [REDACTED] Government of Lesotho [REDACTED] SADC [REDACTED] Lesotho opposition 1,820 [REDACTED] South Africa : The South African intervention in Lesotho , codenamed Operation Boleas , was a military invasion launched by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and led by South Africa through its South African National Defence Force into Lesotho to quell unrest after
118-640: A district secretary and a district military officer appointed by the central government and the RLDF, respectively. The districts are: Berea, Butha-Buthe, Leribe, Mafeteng, Maseru, Mohales Hoek, Mokhotlong, Qacha's Nek, Quthing, Thaba-Tseka Lesotho is member of ACP , AfDB , C , CCC , ECA , FAO , G-77 , IBRD , ICAO , ICC , ICRM , IDA , IFAD , IFC , IFRCS , ILO , IMF , Intelsat (nonsignatory user), Interpol , IOC , ITU , NAM , OPCW , SACU , SADC , United Nations , UNCTAD , UNESCO , UNHCR , UNIDO , UPU , WFTU , WHO , WIPO , WMO , UNWTO and WTO . It
177-436: A divisor of 8 (7 seats + 1 per the method's divisor formula) instead of 1. The resulting table would then give 7 seats for Scotland and 4 seats for Wales to the parties possessing the highest averages on the table, although both devolved parliaments do not use a table, instead using a sequential method. The compensatory effect characteristic of MMP is in the fact that a party that won constituency seats would have lower averages on
236-570: A framework of a parliamentary representative democratic constitutional monarchy , whereby the Prime Minister of Lesotho is the head of government , and of a multi-party system . Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of Parliament , the Senate and the National Assembly . The Judiciary is independent of
295-484: A longtime supporter of MMP. The Green Party of Canada has generally been a staunch supporter of a move to a proportional electoral system. In June 2016, the Canadian House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform was formed to examine potential changes to the voting system with MMP being one of the options examined. The committee presented its report to Parliament on 1 December of the same year. In early 2017,
354-658: A member with a 'safe' constituency seat is therefore a tremendous asset to a minor party in New Zealand. In elections for the Scottish Parliament, there is no threshold set, because the district magnitude of each electoral region is small enough to impose an inherent threshold in the seat distribution calculations. The following countries currently have MMP representation. Countries which nominally use or have used MMP, but in practice had highly disproportional representation or it as otherwise not implemented are discussed in
413-433: A nationwide representative, parties may be required to achieve a minimum number of constituency seats, a minimum percentage of the nationwide party vote, or both. MMP differs from mixed-member majoritarian representation (often achieved by parallel voting ) in that the nationwide seats are allocated to political parties in a compensatory manner in order to achieve proportional election results across all seats (not just
472-565: A party must earn at least a certain percentage of the total party vote, or no candidates will be elected from the party list. Candidates having won a constituency will still have won their seat. In New Zealand the threshold is 5%, in Bolivia 3%, in Germany 5% for elections for federal parliament and most state parliaments. A party can also be eligible for list seats if it wins at least three constituency seats in Germany, or at least one in New Zealand. Having
531-597: A party wins too many constituency seats. The problem of ticket splitting strategies can be solved either by eliminating at least one of the two mechanisms that create the opportunity for abuse: This sort of strategy for a coalition of parties to capture a larger share of list seats may be adopted formally as a strategy. By way of example, in Albania's 2005 parliamentary election , the two main parties did not expect to win any list seats, so they encouraged voters to use their list votes for allied minor parties. This tactic distorted
590-621: Is a type of representation provided by some mixed electoral systems which combine local winner-take-all elections with a compensatory tier with party lists , in a way that produces proportional representation overall. Like proportional representation , MMP is not a single system, but a principle and goal of several similar systems. Some systems designed to achieve proportionality are still called mixed-member proportional, even if they generally fall short of full proportionality. In this case, they provide semi-proportional representation . In typical MMP systems, voters get two votes: one to decide
649-526: Is called MMP, while in other countries similar systems are known under other names. The seat linkage compensatory mixed system often referred to as MMP originates in Germany , and was later adopted with modifications under the name of MMP in New Zealand. In Germany, where is was differentiated from a different compensatory mixed system it was always known as personalized proportional representation (PPR) ( German : personalisiertes Verhältniswahlrecht ). Since
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#1732856164552708-565: Is no trial by jury; rather, judges make rulings alone, or, in the case of criminal trials, with two other judges as observers. The constitution also protects basic civil liberties, including freedom of speech, association, and the press; freedom of peaceful assembly; and freedom of religion. The Court of Appeal is located in Maseru and consists of a President and 6 justices of Appeal. The High Court has unlimited original jurisdiction over civil and criminal matters, as well as appellate jurisdiction from
767-603: Is the number of constituency seats that party won, so that the additional seats are compensatory (top-up). If a party wins more FPTP seats than the proportional quota received by the party-list vote, these surplus seats are called overhang seats ( Überhangmandate in German), which may be an obstacle to achieving full proportionality. When a party wins more constituency seats than it would be entitled to from its proportion of (party list) votes, most systems allow for these overhang seats to be kept by those candidates who earned it in
826-696: The 2008 New Zealand general election the Māori Party won 2.4% of the party vote, which would entitle them to 3 seats in the House, but won 5 constituency seats, leaving an overhang of 2 seats, which resulted in a 122-member house. If the party vote for the Māori Party had been more in proportion with the constituency seats won, there would have been a normal 120-member house. To combat disproportionalities caused by overhang seats, in most German states leveling seats ( Ausgleichsmandate in German) are added to compensate for
885-621: The Lesotho Defence Force was able to carry out their constitutional duties. The last South African troops were pulled out in May 1999 after seven months of occupation. The LCD and IPA after significant negotiation reached an agreement on electoral reform in December 1999, thus the elections had to be postponed. A Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system was introduced in Lesotho seeking to amend
944-628: The South Wales West region, and every election in the South Wales Central region apart from the 2003 election. This situation arises because Labour has continued to hold the overwhelming majority of constituency seats in these regions, and only around one-third of the total number of seats are available for distribution as additional regional seats. ( MMM ) ( Gallagher ) number of overhang seats As in numerous proportional systems , in order to be eligible for list seats in many MMP models,
1003-578: The United Kingdom the sometimes less proportional implementation of MMP used in Scotland and the London Assembly is referred to as the additional member system . In South Africa, MMP is generally referred to as a "mixed-system". The Scandinavian countries have a long history of using both multi-member districts (members elected through party-list PR) and nationally-based compensatory top-up seats using
1062-611: The representative for their single-seat constituency , and one for a political party, but some countries use single vote variants . Seats in the legislature are filled first by the successful constituency candidates, and second, by party candidates based on the percentage of nationwide or region-wide votes that each party received. The constituency representatives are usually elected using first-past-the-post voting (FPTP). The nationwide or regional party representatives are, in most jurisdictions, drawn from published party lists , similar to party-list proportional representation . To gain
1121-410: The "best near-winner" method in a four-region model, where the regional members are the local candidates of the under-represented party in that region who received the most votes in their local constituency without being elected in it ( Zweitmandat , literally "second mandate"). At the regional or national level (i.e. above the constituency level) several different calculation methods have been used, but
1180-515: The 1998 elections. In May 1998, parliamentary elections in Lesotho resulted in an overwhelming majority for the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) Party, which won 79 out of 80 seats. The main opposition party, the Basotho National Party , won the remaining 1 seat, yet with a 24% share of voters. Allegations of vote fraud soon surfaced, and after a failed lawsuit by the opposition parties, widespread rioting broke out. In addition
1239-690: The Court of Appeal are appointed by the King on the advice of the Prime Minister. Puisne judges of the High Court are appointed by the King on the advice of the Judicial Service Commission. High Court judges may retire any time after attaining the age of 75 but may be removed from office by the King for malfeasance or infirmity. For administrative purposes, Lesotho is divided into 10 districts, each headed by
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#17328561645521298-627: The Democratic Congress party ran its campaign opposing the ABC, the party's recent support for the coalition government allowed the new Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) party to seem more credible as a new start. The constitution provides for an independent hierarchical judicial system. The judiciary is made up of the High Court of Lesotho, the Court of Appeal , magistrate's courts, and traditional (customary) courts which exist predominantly in rural areas. There
1357-505: The Government announced that it would accept only some of the committee's recommendations, and would not pursue the issue of electoral reform any further. The pan-European party VOLT Europa proposes transnational mixed-member proportional representation with the combination of Majority Judgment and party-list PR . In other cases, a party may be so certain of winning a large number of constituency seats that it expects no extra seats in
1416-522: The LCD government would be restored to power in return for the establishment of the Independent Political Authority (IPA). The IPA was constituted of 2 members of each of the 12 parties that participated in the 1998 election and was tasked with reforming Lesotho's electoral system with new elections planned for 1999. During this time it was also agreed that SADC forces would remain in Lesotho until
1475-566: The additional seats). Under MMP, two parties that each receive 25% of the votes end up with about 25% of the seats, even if one party wins more constituency seats than the other. Depending on the exact system implemented in a country and the results of a particular election, the proportionality of an election may vary. Overhang seats may reduce the proportionality of the system, although this can be compensated for by allocating additional party list seats to cover any proportionality gap. The specific system of New Zealand for electing its parliament
1534-451: The assembly automatically becomes prime minister; the monarch is hereditary, but, under the terms of the constitution which came into effect after the March 1993 election, the monarch is a "living symbol of national unity" with no executive or legislative powers; under traditional law the college of chiefs has the power to determine who is next in the line of succession, who shall serve as regent in
1593-527: The basic characteristic of the MMP is that the total number of seats in the assembly, including the single-member seats and not only the party-list ones, are allocated to parties proportionally to the number of votes the party received in the party portion of the ballot. This can be done by different apportionment methods : such as the D'Hondt method or the Sainte-Laguë method . Subtracted from each party's allocation
1652-604: The compensation mechanism was manipulated by decoy lists. Countries with systems which have been confused with mixed-member proportional representation: In March 2004, the Law Commission of Canada proposed a system of MMP, with only 33% of MPs elected from regional open lists, for the House of Commons of Canada but Parliament's consideration of the Report in 2004–05 was stopped after the 2006 election. The New Democratic Party has been
1711-669: The constituency elections. A counter-example would be the In Germany's Bundestag , where constituency winners may not always keep their seats since the latest modification of the electoral law. In an MMP variant used in Romania in the 2008 and 2012 legislative elections , where constituency seats could only be earned by the winning candidate if they also achieved an absolute majority in their district, thereby eliminating overhang seats. In New Zealand House of Representatives , all members elected for constituencies keep their seats. For example, in
1770-566: The deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to Lesotho on 22 September 1998 to quell the rioting and maintain order. Botswana Defence Force soldiers were also deployed. The operation was described as an "intervention to restore democracy and the rule of law ". The SANDF contingent included a squadron of Ratel-90 and Rooikat armoured fighting vehicles seconded from 1 Special Service Battalion . Widespread arson, violence, and looting occurred despite
1829-572: The distortions in representation caused by the prior plurality system , with elections to be held at the latest in May 2001. However, further disagreements between the government and IPA, and administrative issues led to the elections being again postponed until 2002. This MMP system saw success in the 2002 election , with the Lesotho Congress for Democracy winning 77 of the 120 seats and the opposition parties accepting these results. Government of Lesotho Politics of Lesotho takes place in
South African intervention in Lesotho - Misplaced Pages Continue
1888-701: The event that the successor is not of mature age, and may even depose the monarch. Parliament has two chambers . The National Assembly has 120 members, elected for a five-year term, 80 in single-seat constituencies and 40 by proportional representation . The Senate has 33 nominated members. The elections were postponed in the Stadium Area constituency following the death of the Basotholand Total Liberation Congress candidate. The ruling All Basotho Convention lost all its constituency seats, including that of party leader Nkaku Kabi. Although
1947-409: The executive and the legislature. The Lesotho Government is a constitutional monarchy. The Prime Minister, Sam Matekane , is head of government and has executive authority. The King serves a largely ceremonial function; he no longer possesses any executive authority and is proscribed from actively participating in political initiatives. According to the constitution, the leader of the majority party in
2006-569: The individual candidate vote in a clearly distinct fashion from open-list systems, it may still be considered mixed-member proportional in the sense of a proportional system having two kinds of MP: one (may be) elected by personal (candidate) votes, one elected by (closed list) votes. Previously, the federal elections used a flexible number of additional compensatory seats, also known as leveling seats , which essentially guaranteed mixed-member proportional representation even with extremely disproportional constituency results, but dramatically increased
2065-487: The lower courts and comprises a Chief Justice and other puisne judges. Parallel to the High Court is the Labour Court, which is a specialist court dealing exclusively with industrial and labour matters. Magistrates Courts are presided over by judicial officers (magistrates) employed as civil servants. They are not courts of record and as such their decisions are not binding on future cases. The Chief Justice and Justices of
2124-425: The nature of the calculations used to distribute the regional list seats, overhang seats are not possible; the list allocation works like a mixed-member majoritarian system, but in using the d'Hondt method 's divisors to find the averages for the allocation, the first divisor for each party takes into account the number of constituency seats won by the party; i.e. a party that won 7 constituency seats would start with
2183-499: The new government lacked support in key areas of the military, police and civil service, facing rebellion in the army. Under President Nelson Mandela the ANC -led government in South Africa (which completely landlocks Lesotho) announced it would create a SADC commission to determine the allegations of corruption. Led by South African judge, Pius Langa , the commission's report stated there
2242-464: The next section. Though not all overhang seats are perfectly compensated for, New Zealand is widely considered to be a typical example of mixed-member proportional representation due to the high proportionality of the system (disregarding the electoral threshold). MMP replaced (modified): There are several other countries which attempted to introduce MMP by seat linkage compensation , but either not enough leveling seats were provided to achieve it, or
2301-464: The number of list seats or "overhang" seats, Albania subsequently decided to change to a pure-list system. In an abusive gambit similar to that used in Albania, major parties feeling that they are unlikely to win a large number of list seats because of their advantage at the constituency level might choose to split their party in two, with one subdivision of the party contesting the constituency seats, while
2360-434: The other contests the list seats—assuming this is allowed by electoral law. The two linked parties could then co-ordinate their campaign and work together within the legislature, while remaining legally separate entities. The result of this approach, if it is used by all parties, would be to transform MMP into a de facto parallel voting mechanism . An example could be seen in the 2007 Lesotho general election . In this case
2419-465: The overhang seats and thereby achieve complete proportionality. For example, the provincial parliament ( Landtag ) of North Rhine Westphalia has, instead of the usual 50% compensatory seats, only 29% unless more are needed to balance overhangs. If a party wins more local seats than its proportion of the total vote justifies, the size of the Landtag increases so that the total outcome is fully proportional to
South African intervention in Lesotho - Misplaced Pages Continue
2478-621: The party's regional list: Bavaria uses seven regions for this purpose. A regional open-list method was recommended for the United Kingdom by the Jenkins Commission (where it is known as AMS) and for Canada by the Law Commission of Canada ; neither recommendation was ever implemented. In contrast, the open-list method of MMP was chosen in November 2016 by voters in the 2016 Prince Edward Island electoral reform referendum . In Baden-Württemberg , there were no lists prior to 2022; they used
2537-488: The plurality winner. In German, this localized list system now shares the name of PPR with the mixed systems still used in the federal states of Germany that are referred to as MMP in English. In English, due to this change, the system is no longer considered to be MMP in the sense of a mixed member system combining proportional and majoritarian representation , but it would be a personalized/localized version of PR. As it retains
2596-464: The presence of SADC soldiers. The central business district of the capital, Maseru , was burned down by opposition supporters. The heavily damaged city required a period of several years of rebuilding. South Africa was accused in some quarters of using its military and diplomatic superiority as a regional hegemon to dominate and meddle in the internal affairs of its much smaller, weaker enclave in order to further its own strategic interests, in particular
2655-609: The proportional top-up (list seats). Some voters may therefore seek to achieve double representation by voting tactically for another party in the regional vote, as a vote for their preferred party in the regional vote would be wasted. This tactic is much less effective in MMP models with a relatively large share of list seats (50% in most German states , and 40% in the New Zealand House of Representatives ) and/or ones which add " balancing seats ", leading to fewer opportunities for overhangs and maintaining full proportionality, even when
2714-488: The representative is by default chosen using a single winner method (though this is not strictly necessary), typically first-past-the-post : that is, the candidate with the most votes (plurality) wins. Most systems used closed party lists to elect the non-constituency MPs (also called list MPs). In most jurisdictions, candidates may stand for both a constituency and on a party list (referred to in New Zealand as dual candidacy ). In Wales between 2006 and 2014 dual candidacy
2773-662: The same method as MMP, however because the local MPs are also elected using PR, these systems are not usually considered MMP as they are not mixed systems . As especially mixed electoral systems can be quite different, sometimes there is no consensus on their classification as mixed-member proportional, mixed majoritarian or something between the two. These cases include partially or conditionally compensatory systems such as those of Hungary, Mexico and South Korea, which are typically said to be supermixed systems or partially compensatory systems, but sometimes inaccurately referred to as MMP even though they are highly disproportional. In MMP,
2832-596: The size of the Bundestag. This meant that it was potentially the most proportional MMP system used after the one in New Zealand , where only overhang seats are added back as list seats, which resulted in minor flexibility of the parliament size. In the Canadian province of Quebec , where an MMP model was studied in 2007, it is called the compensatory mixed-member voting system ( système mixte avec compensation or SMAC). In
2891-550: The table than it would if the election used MMM. Because of no provision for overhang seats, there have been cases where a party ended up with fewer total seats than its proportional entitlement. This occurred, for example, in the elections in the South East Wales electoral region in both 2007 ( Welsh Conservatives under-represented) and in 2016 ( Welsh Labour over-represented, Plaid Cymru under-represented). Labour has also been over-represented on this basis in every election in
2950-668: The two leading parties, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and the All Basotho Convention (ABC) used decoy lists, respectively named the National Independent Party and the Lesotho Workers' Party to avoid the compensatory mechanisms of MMP. As a result, the LCD and its decoy were able to take 69.1% of the seats with only 51.8% of the vote. ABC leader Tom Thabane called the vote "free, but not fair." In
3009-476: The two-vote variant to make local members of parliament (MPs) more personally accountable. Voters can thus vote for the local person they prefer for local MP without regard for party affiliation, since the partisan make-up of the legislature is determined only by the party vote. In the 2017 New Zealand election , 27.33% of voters split their vote (voted for a local candidate of a different party than their party vote) compared to 31.64% in 2014. In each constituency,
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#17328561645523068-420: The variants used in Germany almost always produce very proportional results, the proportionality is emphasized over the mixed nature of the electoral system, and it is essentially considered a localized or personalized form of PR, used instead of conventional open-list systems . The new modified federal election system does not allow overhang seats at all, therefore not all local districts are guaranteed to elect
3127-407: The voter casts two votes: one for a constituency representative and one for a party. In the original variant used in Germany, citizens gave only one vote, so that voting for a representative automatically meant also voting for the representative's party, which is still used in some MMP elections today and is more robust against tactical voting than typical two-vote versions. Most of Germany changed to
3186-460: The votes, with other parties receiving additional list seats to achieve proportionality. The leveling seats are added to the normal number of seats for the duration of the electoral period. In the German state of Bavaria , the constituency vote and party vote are combined to determine the distribution of seats. Scotland uses a modified variant of MMP known as the additional member system where due to
3245-522: The water supply to its economic hub, Gauteng Province . South Africa is the largest economic and military power in the SADC. Despite this, many influential powers such as the United Kingdom , United States of America and the European Union supported the SADC intervention in Lesotho as an "appropriate assumption of regional responsibility". In November 1998 the opposition parties accepted an agreement where
3304-617: The working of the model to the point that the parties that won list seats were almost always different from the parties that won constituency seats. Only one constituency member was elected from parties that won list seats. The election was condemned by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe which said it failed to comply with international standards because of "serious irregularities", intimidation, vote-buying and "violence committed by extremists on both sides." Rather than increasing
3363-543: Was also member of the WCL and OAU before they disbanded. Mixed-member proportional representation Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results Mixed-member proportional representation ( MMP or MMPR )
3422-402: Was banned, i.e. candidates were restricted to contend either for a constituency or for a party list, but not both. If a candidate is on the party list, but wins a constituency seat, they do not receive two seats; they are instead crossed off the party list and the party seat goes to the next candidate down. In Bavaria , the second vote is not simply for the party but for one of the candidates on
3481-440: Was no evidence of electoral malpractice or fraud. In light of the rising crisis and lack of support from elements of the state, the de jure ruling party, the LCD, sent a plea for military assistance to South Africa and Botswana . At the time of the intervention, both Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki were out of South Africa, with Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi serving as acting president. Mandela approved
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