The political crisis in Swaziland continues into a third
week after a vote of no-confidence in the Swazi Government was passed and then
reversed 12 days later.
According to the constitution, the government should have
resigned or been sacked by King Mswati III after the first vote – but neither
of these things happened. Instead, the government forced a revote which it won.
There is no legal reason why the revote was allowed and for the constitution to
be ignored.
Swaziland is not a democracy and King Mswati rules as
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. It seems that he refused to accept
the vote and this set in place a chain of events that led to it being
overturned.
Freedom of speech is severely curtailed in Swaziland and
people are fearful of talking publicly about what has really been happening in
Swaziland in the recent past. They are particularly fearful of being seen to
criticise King Mswati – no matter how mildly they do it.
This fear makes it difficult to get people to talk ‘on
the record’ about what has caused the present political crisis and who is to blame
for it. But this is what Swazi Media Commentary has managed to piece together
so far.
On 3 October 2012, by a vote of 42 in favour and six
against, the House of Assembly passed a no-confidence motion in the government
– this was more than the three-fifths majority (39 votes) of the House
membership needed to trigger the constitution.
According to sections 68 and 134 of the Swaziland Constitution, the government had
three days in which to resign. If it did not, the King was obliged by the
constitution to sack the Prime Minister and the cabinet.
At midnight on the day of the no-confidence vote PM
Barnabas Dlamini held a press conference to announce that he did not recognise
the vote and he would not resign. Three days then
went by but King Mswati III did not sack the government.
By protocol, when the House of Assembly makes a decision,
it has to be personally conveyed to the king by the Speaker of the House. In
this case King Mswati refused to meet with Speaker Prince Gaduza. This meant
that officially the king did not know about the vote of no-confidence and
therefore he felt he did not have to act.
This gave time for the king’s advisors from the Liqoqo (Swaziland
National Council) to meet to decide what they should advise the king about the
no-confidence vote.
They were not prepared to allow the vote to stand so they
looked for excuses to ignore it. The king’s advisers are all traditionalists
and are in charge of interpreting Swazi Law and Custom. The laws and customs
are administered by chiefs who rule over their subjects in the name of the king.
The laws and customs operate outside of the constitution. It is not in the
interests of the traditionalists to have their actions subjected to
constitutional law.
King Mswati always decides which motions from the
Swaziland Parliament he wishes to support and those he does not. He did not
wish to support the no-confidence vote. He has also on numerous times in the
past sent instructions to Parliament on actions he wishes them to take. They
always without discussion or hesitation do as he tells them. The Parliament
made up of the House of Assembly and the Senate, therefore, cannot be seen as
an institution independent of the monarchy.
King Mswati had personally appointed Dlamini as Prime
Minister in 2008 in contravention of the Constitution which states that the PM
must be a member of the House of Assembly. Dlamini was not. He came into
parliament specifically at the king’s instruction to be PM. The government was
also chosen by the king. Therefore, to criticise the performance of the PM and cabinet
can also be seen as criticism of the king’s choices.
When it became clear that King Mswati would not support
the vote of no-confidence, Dlamini felt confident enough to insist that a new
vote be taken by the House to over-turn it. This vote was held and passed on 15
October 2012.
But, the PM did not have the confidence that he would win
by a respectable margin. Only 32 members of the 65-stong House voted and nocount was taken. Instead, the Speaker simply relied on a shout of Aye or Nay
from the members present. We will never know how many voted for the reversal of
the no-confidence vote. But, with only 32 members of the 65-strong House
present the vote could not have been three-fifths (39) of the total membership
of the House.
According to standing orders there have to be at least 30
members of the House present for a vote to be taken. During the rerun of the
vote some members left the chamber taking the number below 30. The Deputy Prime
Minister Themba Masuku left the chamber to search for missing members and found
some of them relaxing in the canteen watching the proceedings on a monitor. The
MPs say the DPM bullied and threatened them to return to the chamber. He denies
this and says he simply ‘lobbied’ them back into the chamber. They did,
however, return.
After the vote, accusations have been published in Swazi
local newspapers that some members were either threatened or bribed to support reversing
the no-confidence vote. Reports say some were promised high office or cash to
help them get re-elected in next year’s national election.
Immediately the revote was taken, civil society
organisations, pro-democracy activists and lawyers in Swaziland protested that
it was unconstitutional and that the government had no right to force a
re-vote: only a court could do so. The Attorney General Majahenkhaba Dlamini in
a newspaper interview agreed that the constitution did indeed say the court
was the place to go to get clarity on the constitution, but that government had
decided not to do so.
The Law Society of Swaziland has said it will challenge
the revote in court.
See also
CONSTITUTION EXISTS MERELY ON PAPER
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