{"id":217395,"date":"2020-05-08T18:54:57","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T17:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=217395"},"modified":"2020-05-08T21:38:45","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T20:38:45","slug":"80-year-old-lesotho-prime-minister-to-step-down-due-to-old-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=217395","title":{"rendered":"80-year-old Lesotho Prime Minister To Step Down Due To \u201cOld Age\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Eighty-year-old Lesotho Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane, on Thursday reiterated his intention to retire by the end of July \u201cor earlier\u201d despite the risk of prosecution for his alleged involvement in the 2017 murder of his estranged wife.<br \/>\n<span class=\"container container-pod container-pod-short\"><span class=\"adunit-parent hide block-module block-module-ad block-module-ad-300x250\"><span class=\"block-module-image-wrapper\"><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Ruling party officials and opposition groups have piled pressure on Thabane to leave office over allegations that he had a hand in a murder case that has shocked the tiny Southern African kingdom.<br \/>\n<span class=\"ds-1col file file-image file-image-jpeg view-mode-embedded centered clearfix block-story-object block-story-object-resource block-story-object-resource-image\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"block-story-object-asset\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"media-element file-embedded\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" src=\"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/storage\/2020\/05\/80-year-old-Lesotho-Prime-Minister-To-Step-Down-Due-To-\u201cOld-Age\u201d.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The octogenarian, whose term is due to end in 2022, has promised to retire by the end of July this year on the grounds of \u201cold age\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>His ruling All Basotho Convention Party last week rejected his demand for immunity from prosecution after he steps down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wish to once again reaffirm my decision to retire as Prime Minister,\u201d Thabane said in an address to the nation on Thursday, without setting a clear date for his resignation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have always been consistent that it is my wish to retire from office by the 31st of July, 2020, or earlier if all the necessary conditions for my retirement are put in place,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Thabane said the decision was \u201cvoluntary\u201d as he was \u201cno longer as energetic\u201d due to his age.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government and the political party that I lead will coordinate the process of my retirement,\u201d he assured.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eighty-year-old Lesotho Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane, on Thursday reiterated his intention to retire by the end of July \u201cor earlier\u201d despite the risk of prosecution for his alleged involvement in the 2017 murder of his estranged wife. Ruling party officials and opposition groups have piled pressure on Thabane to leave office over allegations that he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[8292,14767,354,11938],"class_list":["post-217395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-cyril-ramaphosa","tag-lesotho","tag-south-africa","tag-zuma"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=217395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=217395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=217395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=217395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}