Democratic movement must
unite and involve rank and file to depose Swaziland’s absolute monarch
Stiffkitten blog November 28, 2012
“A group of uncoordinated lions will fail to catch a limping buffalo,”
says a member of the democratic movement in Roskilde University scholar Bo
Karlsen’s newly published analysis of the democratic movement in Swaziland,
Struggling to Achieve Mass Mobilisation and Unity.
Bo Karlsen collected empirical data during a five week field study in
Swaziland, sponsored by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Here he
interviewed leaders from all of the main organisations in the democratic
movement in Swaziland – a country that absolute monarch Mswati III has more or
less bankrupted and whose population has been devastated due to “poor policy
choices” and “heavy exploitation.”
From these interviews, Karlsen concludes that unity and mass
mobilisation in the democratic movement in Swaziland are the main goals, but
that the main impediments for the movement as a whole in achieving these goals
are leadership struggles and value differences between two fractions or wings
of the democratic movement. If they united, “they would be able to overthrow
the King and his government,” he claims.
However, as much as these two interrelated goals were shared broadly
among the organizations in the democracy movement, the goals were only
occasionally achieved, says Karlsen.
“There are some deeply rooted differences in values and ways to carry
out activities between the two wings in the democracy movement,” writes
Karlsen. And the “leaders of the two wings are hostile to each other and are
reluctant to cooperate. In the neighbouring countries it has been possible to
form broad coalitions. However, in Swaziland the actors continued to focus on what
divides and not what unites.”
The two wings, says Karlsen, are made up of the Swaziland United
Democratic Front (SUDF), the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) and
the Foundation for Socio-Economic Justice (FSEJ) on the one hand, and the Swaziland
Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (SCCCO), the Ngwane National
Liberatory Congress (NNLC) and the Swaziland National Association of Teachers
(SNAT) on the other – let us refer to them as the SUDF and the SCCCO-wing.
The main difference between the two wings, Karlsen says, is that the
SUDF-wing is seen as being more activist, confrontational and prone to initiate
and participate in demonstrations.
There are other differences, but these are not generally insurmountable,
says Karlsen. “Concerns about the work of the democracy movement were shared
[and] they were concerned with the same issues … Often the different
organizations are able to meet and agree on the same goals.”
One way of solving the problem, he writes, is to involve the rank and
file levels of the organisations that make up Swaziland’s democratic movement,
as the rank and file is less prejudiced towards the opposing wing than the
respective leaders, and by having an organisation that acts impartially.
This solution has already been successfully attempted by the Swaziland
Democracy Campaign (SDC) and the International Research Academy for Labour and
Education (IRALE).
The SDC owes its success to its flat and loose cooperation structure,
not being involved in the party politics as other organisations allegedly are,
“playing the middle ground” and thereby being able to get “both wings together
in campaigns.” According to Karlsen, the SDC “has been the sole actor in the
Swazi democracy movement that has achieved mobilization of almost all actors in
the democracy movement as participants.”
IRALE owes its success to “capitalizing on the more positive approach”
of the rank of file of Swaziland’s two trade federations towards the other,
each of which belonged to different wings of the movement, and thus helping
facilitate the merging of Swaziland’s trade unions into one trade federation,
TUCOSWA. “IRALE has been what several sources call the key instigator in the
merging between the two competing federations,” says Karlsen.
Whichever way it comes about, however, a more unified approach within
the democratic movement is still necessary to make it legitimate and credible
enough in the eyes of both the Swazi population – who risk being tortured,
beaten up and forcefully evicted if they campaign for democracy – and the
international community.
“A united Swazi democracy movement is important to gain legitimacy in
the population and look like a viable alternative in the country,” writes
Karlsen. The present disunity, on the other hand, makes the leaders of
Swaziland’s democratic movement look too much like the parties in nearby
Lesotho, a small former monarchy whose democracy has ended in bickering between
its respective parties, in the eyes of the general population.
As for the international community, “the reason [that they stick to
vague criticism] is that South Africa [Swaziland’s neighbour and biggest
trading partner] and the international society is unsure of the stability of
the alternative to the King,” writes Karlsen. “This factor in itself is an
important reason for achieving unity in the Swazi democracy movement in order
to be recognized as a viable alternative.”
Bo Karlsen is the National Secretary of the Danish Central American
Committee. He has Master’s Degree in International Development studies, and has
done analytical and administrative work for the Danish Trade Union Council for
International Development Co-operation and the Danish Development Research
Network. During the last ten years he has worked, studied and travelled in
Latin America, Africa and Nepal.
