SWAZI WOMEN VOTE CAMPAIGN ‘EVIL’

Chiefs have branded a ‘Vote for a Woman’ election campaign in Swaziland ‘evil’.

The campaign designed to help meet the requirement of the Swaziland Constitution for at least 30 percent of parliamentarians to be women, was also called ‘unSwazi’.

The chiefs of the Shiselweni region refused to endorse the campaign in their areas.

This happened at a ‘sensitisation’ meeting held by the Swaziland Home Affairs Ministry.

The Times of Swaziland reported today (8 July), most of the chiefs ‘said they felt that the concept had a foreign element that is unSwazi and had no place in the Swazi way of life’.

Although the newspaper didn’t report this, the chiefs were in effect saying that the constitution was ‘unSwazi’. Ironically, the Times reported the chiefs saying the Vote for a Woman campaign was itself unconstitutional because the election campaign had not officially started yet and the campaign was electioneering.

But that was just an excuse. The real reason was that the chiefs have no concept of democracy and do not want anyone but themselves to have a voice.

The former Swaziland Government Minister of Agriculture Chief Dambuza Lukhele gave the game away when he told the meeting, ‘This campaign seems to make Swazis lose their identity and culture. It has an evil foreign element, which we can’t accept. We respect international conventions, but this is unacceptable.’

The Times reported that this statement was met with ‘applause of approval from other chiefs’.

The Times reported Chief Velakubi of Madulini saying,

‘We can’t allow this to go ahead in our chiefdoms. This country can be lost in our hands. What if we allow this to proceed and the youth and other formations also come and say they want a forum also to pursue their agendas.’

The Times reported that Senior Gender Analyst at the Ministry of Home Affairs Jane Mkhonta, who was to lecture on the campaign, tried to be diplomatic and asked the chiefs to allow the meeting to go ahead but to no avail.

This new move to stifle debate in Swaziland comes a week after the European Union (EU) Ambassador to Swaziland Peter Beck Christiansen announced that the EU would not ‘observe’ the forthcoming elections because the Prime Minister and Cabinet are not elected by parliament. He said, ‘It’s clear that the [Swazi] constitution has some shortcomings.’

Meanwhile, the Swazi Observer reported (8 July 2008) that the Elections and Boundaries Commission chairman Chief Gija Dlamini had said that he was told the EU was coming to observe the elections.

I suppose we’ll find out in due course who is correct here. All we need now is for King Mswati III to tell us when the vote will be.


See also
EU SNUBS SWAZILAND ELECTION