The Swaziland House of Assembly has reversed its vote of
no-confidence in the government, amid great controversy.
On Monday (15 October 2012) after an eight-hour debate
members rescinded a vote that had taken place two weeks earlier. That vote, by
a three-fifths majority of members of the House, was enough to force the
cabinet to resign, in line with Section 68 (5) of the Swazi Constitution.
The first vote had cause a political crisis because the government,
led by Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini, refused to resign and King Mswati III
did not sack him, as he is required to do under the Constitution.
Last weekend it was reported
that the king, who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was furious at
the vote of no-confidence and he refused to see the Speaker of the House on the
matter. It was widely interpreted that because the king did not accept the vote’s
outcome, a reason would be found to declare it void.
Within days of this, the House met on Monday to reverse
the original vote. Only 32 members of the House were present for the vote and
this fell short of the three-fifths majority the original vote enjoyed. There
are 65 members of the House and the 32 present for the vote was only two members
over the minimum number who must be present for the House to be quorate.
The votes on Monday were not recorded; Speaker Prince
Guduza used the ‘Aye or Nay’ voting principle to decide the outcome, so the
exact numbers who voted for the reversal can never be known.
There are doubts about the legality of Monday’s vote. The
Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s
only independent daily newspaper, reported that on Monday the Attorney General,
Majahenkhaba Dlamini had not been able to tell the House on Monday what
instrument was being used to allow the vote to go ahead.
Chairman of the Lawyers for Human Rights Swaziland Mandla
Mkhwanazi reported in the Times,said, ‘My view is that if it takes two to tango, it should also take two to
un-tango. By this I mean that since it took a three-fifths majority for the
vote to be passed, it should also take the same number of votes to reverse it.’
See also
KING WON’T ACT ON NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE
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