The South African Deputy President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, was still wiping the egg from his face yesterday after misinforming the public that a settlement had been reached between feuding parties in neighbouring Lesotho.
Mr Mbeki, apparently anxious to win kudos for South Africa and the ANC-led government, preempted the outcome of the talks chaired by South Africa's Safety and Security Minister, Mr Sydney Mufamadi, and presented a partial accord as a complete agreement. While Lesotho's fractious politicians agreed that a new election should be held within 15 to 18 months, they had not concurred, as Mr Mbeki reported, that the ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) should remain in power until the election was held.
The question of who should hold power in the interim was still hotly disputed and deferred until further discussion today, even as Mr Mbeki was triumphantly telling television viewers: "We must all celebrate that the cause of democracy has succeeded and that new measures will be taken in Lesotho to reaffirm the principle that the people shall govern."
A spokeswoman for Lesotho's opposition parties, Ms Mamelo Morrison, angrily accused Mr Mbeki of lying, saying: "We have not come anywhere near agreement." There had only been a "tentative agreement" on some issues, she said, accusing Mr Mbeki of preparing his televised speech even before the talks started. Mr Mufamadi, who some observers believe is being groomed to become foreign minister when Mr Mbeki succeeds President Nelson Mandela, offered a kinder explanation. Mr Mbeki had assumed that the Lesotho Prime Minister, Mr Pakalitha Mosisili, would remain in power until the next election because no party had expressly opposed the notion during Friday's talks. The Deputy President's office attributed the error to a "genuine mistake", made while Mr Mbeki was being briefed on the state of the talks.
South Africa's military intervention in Lesotho, undertaken to "restore stability" at the request of Mr Mosisili, earned the wrath of opposition parties from the moment armoured vehicles rolled across the border.
Mr Mbeki's "mistake" compounded their suspicions that South Africa was not the honest broker it declared itself to be. The intervention came after a mutiny in the Lesotho Defence Force was interpreted by South Africa and its Southern African Development Community partners as the prelude to a military coup against Mr Mosisili's government, amid clamorous protests that his party had rigged the May election.