The party of Lesotho's longtime prime minister is just behind the main opposition as vote counting nears completion in parliamentary elections, the Independent Electoral Commission reported yesterday.

The commission posted results from 64 of 80 constituencies on its website yesterday afternoon.

The tally showed the All Basotho Convention with 26 seats and Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili's Democratic Congress with 25. Shortly before Saturday's vote in this nation of 2million, Mosisili broke away from the Lesotho Congress for Democracy, which had been riven by an internal power struggle.

The Lesotho Congress for Democracy had 12 seats and another opposition party had one, according to counts yesterday afternoon.

Final results are expected today.

The Lesotho Congress for Democracy under Mosisili won elections in 1998, 2002 and 2007.

In the first decades after independence from Britain in 1966, Lesotho's military and its king repeatedly meddled in politics, weakening the nascent democracy.

The king is now considered merely a figurehead.

After an army mutiny in 1998, South Africa, which surrounds mountainous Lesotho, intervened militarily. Political negotiations led to electoral reforms meant to give a greater voice to parties in opposition to the entrenched Lesotho Congress for Democracy.

As part of the reforms, 40 seats allotted by proportional representation were added to parliament's 80 elected seats.