Swaziland’s Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku has
announced that the national elections this year will take place in August.
Usually only the Swazi King, Mswati III, sub-Saharan
Africa’s last absolute monarch, decides on the date and announces it formally
to his subjects.
But, Masuku told the Sunday
Independent newspaper in South Africa this week (27 January 2013), ‘We hold
regular elections and the next one’s billed for August.’
He went on to tell the newspaper that political parties were
legal in Swaziland and could fight the election. This statement goes against
commonly held belief that political parties are banned.
He told the newspaper, ‘It is inaccurate to say political
parties are unwanted because Chapter 3 of our constitution guarantees freedom
of association. If someone does not want to exercise that right it is not the
problem of the state.’
He went on to say that political parties would have to go
to the local government centres, known as tinkhundla, ‘sell their programmes to
the people and not fear going to the polls’.
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