UN role should be to inculcate ‘culture of democracy’ – Lesotho

The United Nations should strive “to aggressively inculcate the culture of democracy in all nations” and discourage losing parties from using unlawful means to contest election results, Lesotho’s Deputy Prime Minister told the General Assembly today.

Archibald Lesao Lehohla told the annual high-level debate at the Assembly that all too frequently in poor countries the losing parties resort to violence and other methods to dispute the results.

“This is despite the fact that there are always lawful mechanisms for challenging the election results,” he said. “This is one area where we see the role of the United Nations, as the universal institution, with the necessary capacity, to assist requesting Member States to reverse these trends.”

Mr. Lehohla stressed that “just as the United Nations plays a critical role in world economic development, it should see it as its role to aggressively inculcate the culture of democracy in all nations. In particular it must help the developing countries to fight the culture of impunity” around violent responses to the results of ballots.

“Victors must learn to accept victory with humility and magnanimity and losers to accept defeat with grace. In this way, the post-election period can be devoted to development, with all sides joining hands in the collective national effort.”

Mr. Lehohla also called on the UN to adopt an instrument that introduces sanctions when a Member State has an unconstitutional change of government.