I take my hat off to the Swazi News for daring to publish an article that is damning of Swaziland.
In the present climate, following the illegal appointment of Barnabas Dlamini as Prime Minister, where everyone who is critical of the state is considered a ‘terrorist sympathiser’ and liable to be ‘dealt with’ by the authorities, it takes some courage to print something that says that King Mswati III is in effect unaccountable to his people.
The article, published today (25 October 2008), is written by Terence Corrigan, a researcher and seminar facilitator at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg, South Africa. I wrote about this article when it first appeared on AllAfrica.com in September 2008.
Corrigan uses the recent election in Swaziland as a springboard to unpick the problems in Swaziland today.
He writes, ‘Swaziland’s parliamentary elections have underlined the dire and longstanding problems that confront the small southern African nation.
‘The country needs seriously to reconsider its political arrangements if it is to deal with the challenges it faces.
‘Voting in the nation of a little more than one million people went ahead smoothly – in a technical sense – last month. But the country cannot be called a democracy; it is an absolute monarchy in which parties are banned and candidates must stand as individuals.
‘The country’s constitution is quite explicit on this: the king – currently King Mswati III – is “immune from suit or legal process in any case in respect of all things done or omitted to be done by him.” This is not unique for a monarch, but in Swaziland the king has a direct role in governance, so the provision severely abridges his accountability.’
On the monarchy, he writes, ‘[...], it is difficult to gauge what Swazis truly feel about the monarchy. The country is heavily rural, and most rural people depend on land and therefore their livelihoods on chiefs who are answerable to the king. The society is a deeply traditional one, and throughout history people have venerated their monarchs as rulers ordained by God, fathers and protectors of the nation and custodians of culture. Swazi royalists have played on this, to the extent that clergy who support them have condemned democracy as anti-Christian. But the mystique is fraying: for example, women demonstrated against the recent royal shopping trip, saying the money should have been used for anti-retroviral drugs.’
He concludes, ‘Right now, Swaziland’s royal order faces no imminent threat, internal or external. If King Mswati III does not seize the opening he still has to initiate reform – albeit at the cost of some of his own power – the alternative is likely to be a gradual crumbling of the country, sometimes violently, which will bring a disorder.’
To read the full article, click here.
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