Tom Thabane, the Prime Minister of Lesotho, is expected to be charged with the murder of his estranged wife today.
Lilopelo Thabane was shot dead in 2017, only a few days before Thabane’s inauguration as the head of government of the Mountain Kingdom.
The country’s deputy police commissioner, Paseka Mokete, said that it had been agreed with Thabane’s lawyer that the Prime Minister would appear in court today and formally be charged with murder.
Thabane’s current wife, Maesaiah, has already been charged with Lilopelo’s murder, with her trial set to continue next month.
Due to the scandal, Thabane had promised his party, the All-Basotho Convention (ABC), that he would resign and said this week he would stand down by the end of July. It is not clear whether he will now resign earlier.
Despite its small and homogeneous population, Lesotho’s politics has always been fractious. In the last general election held in 2017, as many as twelve parties won seats in the country’s 120-member parliament. Thabane’s ABC was the biggest party with 40% of the vote and 48 seats. It remains to be seen whether the four-party coalition which keeps the ABC in power holds after these latest scandals.