The Basotho National Party is a political party in Lesotho, founded in 1959 in colonial Basutoland as the Basutoland National Party by Leabua Jonathan. He was Prime Minister from the 1965 general election until the 1986 coup d'état.
In the 1993 general election, the BNP received almost 23% of the vote but did not win any seats in the National Assembly, with all 65 seats going to the party's rival, the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP). It suffered a similar defeat in the 1998 general election, in which it won 24.5% of the vote but only one seat in the National Assembly. Due to its lack of success in winning constituencies, the party sought the introduction of proportional representation in deciding the allocation of seats; as a compromise, a mixed system providing for 40 compensatory seats that would be decided through proportional representation (in addition to the 80 constituency seats) was introduced.Political Parties of the World (6th edition, 2005), ed. Bogdan Szajkowski, pages 376–377.
Justin Lekhanya, the leader of the 1986 coup, was elected as Party Leader of the BNP at its Conference in March 1999."Committee of Privileges Reports to Parliament; Opposition MP Bereng Sekhonyana Murdered" , Summary of Events in Lesotho - 2nd Quarter 2006, trc.org.ls. In the 25 May 2002 general election, the party won 21 compensatory seats through proportional representation with 22.4% of the vote. Since then, the party has been rocked by internal squabbles which have seen it fail to provide an effective opposition within the Lesotho parliament. In the 17 February 2007 general election, the party won only 3 out of 120 seats. Its headquarters are in Maseru, the capital city. The BNP was hostile to South Africa's intentions to incorporate Lesotho. It also provided an end to racial discrimination in Lesotho, the gradual Africanization of the civil service and business and a government which was answerable to Basotho.
Electoral Performance
Election Proportional Constituency Seats +/- Government Votes Share Votes Share 1960N/A colspan=2 New 1965 108,140 42.01 colspan=2 30 1970 129,434 42.23 colspan=2 8 1985Only contesting party colspan=2 37 1993 120,686 22.66 colspan=2 60 1998 145,210 24.45 colspan=2 1 2002 124,234 22.41 115,085 21.44 20 2007 29,965 6.76 24,721 5.76 18 2012 32,788 4.31 colspan=2 2 2015 31,508 5.53 colspan=2 2 2017 23,451 4.05 colspan=2 2 2022 7,343 1.43 colspan=2 4
References