Good week for Tom Thabane and bad week for Phuthuma Nhleko
You can never tell with Lesotho’s byzantine politics and coalition scrambles, but opposition leader and All Basotho Convention head Tom Thabane emerged from the June 3 election with 51 seats to 30 won by his rival, Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili of the Democratic Congress. Sixty-one seats are needed for a majority in the 120-seat national assembly. Most of the 25 parties contesting the polls won only one seat. The latest tweets had Thabane’s coalition on 63 seats to 44 for Mosisili’s alliance, so he looks to be the winner. It never rains but it pours for MTN. Just when it has come through its Nigeria debacle by settling a US$1.6bn regulatory fine, group executive chairman Phuthuma Nhleko has been hit with a claim for $4.2bn in damages lodged by Turkcell. The Turkish company alleges MTN paid bribes to SA and Iranian officials to secure the licence that it initially won in Iran in 2005. The matter will be heard in the Johannesburg high court, five years after the case was first bro...
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