Lesotho
Election coverage

coverage of the elections by the media.

Fair elections involve the necessity to
provide citizens with fair, balanced, and
objective information to enable them to
come to an informed and rational decision about which leader or party to vote
for. Media, therefore, play an indispensable role in the proper functioning of
democracy.

Media in Lesotho operate under strenuous conditions and the continual threat
to free press poses serious challenges in
covering crucial events like elections,
particularly in ensuring that media carry
the citizens agenda and ask the rights
questions so that citizens become informed voters. While the Lesotho Constitution does not directly mention press
freedom, it guarantees freedom of expression and information exchange.

The Coordinated Civil Society Regional
Observer Mission which included the
SADC Council of NGOs and the SADC
Lawyers Association (SADC-LA) saluted the efforts of MISA-Lesotho for the
Broadcasters Capacity Building in Peace
Building and Conflict Reporting project
prior to the 2015 elections. MISA Lesotho was lauded for this pioneering project which contributed to fair and professional coverage of candidates, parties
and electoral processes.
During this training workshop, a new
approach was introduced and the 29
journalists from 10 districts around the
country agreed to engage an innovative
approach which saw live simultaneous
radio reporting of the elections involving 9 radio stations. This reporting strategy was essential in ensuring the minimization of incorrect information by
individual radio presenters when reporting elections in Lesotho.
It was interesting to note that the Lesotho media reported the elections differently from other countries such as Zambia and South Africa in that the political
party that received the most votes in the
previous election did not receive the
most coverage during the 2015 elections.
This was an observation made by the
South African-based Media Monitoring
Africa (MMA) in conjunction with MISA
Lesotho during their monitoring of the

However, multiple laws, including the
Sedition Proclamation No. 44 of 1938
and the Internal Security (General) Act
of 1984 prohibit criticism of the government, provide penalties for seditious
libel, and endanger reporters’ ability to protect the confidentiality of their
sources. These laws and incidents where
journalists and their media houses have
been attacked and threatened, pose a
major restriction to the ability of media
in Lesotho to report elections to their optimum ability.
The stories are fair and not biased but
to whose favour? By looking at the results in their entirety, an argument can
be made that the media avoided controversy and reported in fair manner and
ignored critical issues that are important
to the nation of the Basotho people.1
The absence of a dominating party resulted in the state media provided fairly
equitable access to parties and candidates. On the other hand some of the
private media (especially radio) aligned
themselves with various political parties.
Election debates were aired on eleven
private and public radio stations which
comprised: Harvest FM, KEL FM, Mo-Af1 Media Monitoring Interim Results. Lesotho Election 2015

So This is Democracy? 2015

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