LESOTHO COUNCIL OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS (LCN) VOTER EDUCATION COMES TO AN END
	The voter education process conducted by the Lesotho Council of Non-Governmental Organizations (LCN) in the three southern districts of Mafeteng, Mohale's Hoek and Quthing came to an end at the weekend. In an interview, LCN's Information officer, Mr. Lebohang Chefa indicated that the process that commenced on March 25 has been a great success after having managed to cover all the 21 constituencies that the five LCN teams had anticipated to cover. He noted that the success of the campaigns in most areas was due to the Chief's cooperation in ensuring that they organized public gatherings in time for voter educators to proceed with their duties. Mr. Chefa further clarified that in most places they covered, people were actively participating adding that some people thought it could be useful if they visited more often to educate them on other issues such as those of development. He commended the public gatherings turn out in most places, adding that however, in some places there was a low attendance problem caused by chiefs who failed to organize public gatherings and also by people who did not perceive the importance of the campaigns. He said in some cases they encountered problems due to clash of public gatherings with those organized by political parties, who were nominating the proposed candidates and as a result, attendance was affected. He concluded by indicating that people seemed excited with the voter education process, saying chiefs even expressed hope that the LCN teams would always collaborate with the Independent Electoral Commission to educate people on the electoral process. One of the LCN team leaders Mr. Makara Nkuatsana told LENA in an interview that their biggest challenge during the campaign was to educate people on how votes will be converted into seats, saying it was rather difficult for some people to understand the rationale between two ballots. He said most people were very interested in understanding the proportional representation method, clarifying that they had to explain that the method was a political remedy to a long-time political problem where seats were allocated using the first-past the post method. Meanwhile, the voter education campaign was carried out by ten organizations representing a range of sectors such as youth, women, human rights and disabled. The Project was funded by Open Society Initiative in Southern Africa (OSISA), British Department for International Development and United States Embassy in Maseru.
	SOURCE LESOTHO NEWS AGENCY(LENA)