'Dignified exit' for embattled Lesotho PM: SA envoy

Lesotho’s government has agreed with South African mediators and political parties to implement a “dignified retirement” for prime minister Thomas Thabane.

This was disclosed in a joint statement on Monday, signaling stepped up efforts to end a political crisis.

Thabane has been under pressure to resign owing to a murder case in which he and his current wife are suspected of being involved in the assassination of his previous wife, charges which both of them deny.

He had pledged to step down at the end of July, but South African mediator Jeff Radebe told journalists in Lesotho’s capital Maseru that “the timeline is immediate,” for his leaving office.

Neither Thabane nor his spokespeople were immediately available for comment on whether or when he plans to quit as prime minister of Lesotho, a tiny kingdom embedded in a South African mountain range.

Though small and with a population of not more than 2 million, Lesotho’s political upheavals often draw in its bigger neighbour, South Africa, for whom the kingdom’s mountains are an essential source of running water.

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