Chapter two: Country background and context 34 The era of military dictatorship: 1986–1993 59. The political landscape under the military regime was marked by the following: • A military–monarchy alliance at the highest level of the state. • The banning of party-political activities by Order No. 4 of 1986. • Electoral politics remaining suspended. • The worsening state of human rights. • The intensification of indiscipline and factionalism within the security forces. 60. The military dictatorship was followed, between 1993 and 2002, by an era of fragile democracy in which Lesotho’s political development witnessed the reinstitutionalisation of multiparty democracy. The epoch of fragile democracy: 1993–2002 61. This new political development was ushered in by the first democratic election since the abortive one of 1970. The 1993 election delivered a landslide victory for the BCP. The BCP won 74.7 per cent of the total votes and secured all 65 parliamentary seats. Despite the fact that it won 22.6 per cent of the votes, the BNP did not even get a single seat in the legislature. This skewed distribution of parliamentary seats demonstrated the serious deficiencies of Lesotho’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral model, which was inherited from Britain as part of the Westminster constitutional arrangement. 62. Exciting as the onset of multiparty democracy was following decades of authoritarian rule, Lesotho’s democracy still remained fragile. Political instability and violent conflict among key governance institutions – the monarchy, the executive, the legislature, the public service, political parties, the army, and the police – were manifest. 63. Nonetheless, elections were regularly held between 1993 and 2002, albeit with various types of election-related conflict. In both the 1993 and 1998 elections, citizen participation was relatively high, as illustrated by a voter turnout of over 60 per cent. 64. Despite the fact that the 1998 election was proclaimed by many international observers as free and fair, it was almost immediately followed by the worst violent conflict in Lesotho’s history, a conflict involving the government and opposition parties. Opposition parties contested the election outcome, but it was evident that the split in the BCP and the establishment of the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) had triggered a deep sense of bitterness within the ranks of the BCP. This bitterness presented the BNP with a golden opportunity to join forces with the BCP and challenge the election outcome. The conflict escalated into violence on a large scale and government sought military intervention from South Africa. South Africa, jointly with Botswana, intervened militarily and diplomatically to quell Lesotho’s political instability. The diplomatic efforts comprised, among others, negotiations involving belligerent parties aimed at initiating constitutional and electoral reforms. Notable among these reforms was the adoption of the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system.