Stiffkitten blog
3 January 2013
In a New Year’s statement issued by Swaziland United
Democratic Front (SUDF) Coordinator, Wandile Dludlu, the SUDF says it will
mobilise the population against Swaziland’s non-party elections that the
organisation calls a “fallacy of royal supremacy.”
“We want [the Swazi political system of] Tinkhundla to
record the lowest turn-out in history as we witnessed in the recently held
local elections … to prove … that the current Swazi system of governance is
illegitimate, unpopular and a mockery to democracy,” the statement said.
Swaziland’s political system is widely seen as
undemocratic and corrupt. In its 2012 report, American research institute
Freedom House states that “Swaziland is not an electoral democracy. King Mswati
III is an absolute monarch with ultimate authority over the cabinet,
legislature, and judiciary.”
“Tinkhundla elections can essentially be defined as
‘organised certainty’, since they reproduce the prevailing political status quo
in Swaziland,” wrote the Institute for Security Studies in a situation report
on Swaziland from last year.
The SUDF statement goes on to link the lack of democracy
to government and royal corruption, inequality and the poverty of the vast
majority of Swaziland’s citizens.
“King Mswati’s government is designed to serve the
interest of the rapacious and gullible appetite of the royal house and its
cronies for pleasure and leisure … 350,000 people in a population of around a
million live on [aid from the] World Food Programme … the current gloomy
social, economic and political dire straits plaguing our country is a direct
product of a country without democracy.”
Nevertheless, the SUDF is optimistic about the prospects
for change in Swaziland. “It’s a brand new year full of hope and potential for
freedom to finally prevail in our beloved country,” the New Year’s statement
proclaims.
Freedom and democratisation is to be achieved through a
combination of mobilisation and grass-roots campaigns. This is to be seen as a
continuation of the demands of last year’s People’s Charter that include the
implementation of a multi-party democracy, media freedom and an end to state
sponsored violence against democracy advocates.
Another issue touched upon in the statement is the importance
of unity within the democratic movement in achieving these goals. “The
fragmentation of forces that needed to work together is one area that has
denied all of us the fire power and leverage which we need the most … In 2013
we must … re-build the entire mass democratic movement.”
No comments:
Post a Comment