Chapter three: Democracy and good political governance 56 153. The lengthy negotiations culminated in the formulation and adoption of the MMP electoral model in 2001, which combined both the PR and FPTP system. However, the application of the MMP model is now in dispute, with the opposition parties charging that the ruling party manipulated the application of the system to the disadvantage of the opposition in 2007. Socioeconomic conflict 154. With regard to socioeconomic conflict, stakeholders stated that there are structural conditions that constitute a threat to the security and stability of the country. Some of these structural conditions are economic deprivation and inequity, overpopulation, a lack of arable land, high unemployment and the lack of institutional capacity or process to manage political and social conflict. The social instability resulting from structural conflict can adversely affect good political governance and development in Lesotho should the government be diverted from its normal functions in order to concentrate on resolving the instability. Institutional conflict 155. Civil control of the military was very problematic during the early years of the country’s return to democratic rule in 1993. In January 1994, factions within the military locked horns in a violent conflict which, among other things, resulted in the assassination of the deputy prime minister in April of the same year. Disturbances within the National Security Service (NSS) and the strike by the police in May and June 1994 over salary increases also created a general climate of instability. Later, in February 1997, a mutiny ensued within the police force, leading to a violent encounter between factions within the force and to intervention by the army. 156. The LDF in its current form is the result of a metamorphosis of the security force bequeathed by the British colonial power in 1966. The security force initially evolved as a paramilitary police force styled the Police Mobile Unit (PMU) in the 1960s. The PMU was transformed into the Lesotho Paramilitary Force (LPF) in 1980, but was subsequently converted into a defence force proper during the course of the 1980s and became known as the Royal Lesotho Defence Force (RLDF) and currently as the LDF. Not long after becoming a defence force proper, it seized the reins of state power in 1986 and ruled till 1993, when a democratic dispensation was reintroduced. 157. Security sector reform of the military actually began with section 146 of the 1993 constitution, which established the LDF “for the maintenance of internal security and the defence of Lesotho”. On 29 March 1996, the prime minister, as the minister of defence and national security, introduced a bill in Parliament which amended the 1993 constitution in order to provide more effective and efficient governance machinery for the LDF. Thus section 146 of the constitution was amended accordingly. The basic essentials of the amendment are as follows: the prime minister as the head of government has the power to determine the operational use of the LDF; powers of command are vested in the commander of the LDF; and the appointment and removal of the commander of the LDF rest with the king as head of state and constitutional monarch, acting on the advice of the prime minister as the head of government. 158. The above constitutional arrangements are buttressed by enabling legislation, namely the LDF Act of 1996, which further rationalises the governance of the military in line with the evolving democratic