Percy Simelane,
the Swaziland Government’s official spokesperson, misled people when he told media,
‘Everyone is free to speak about the elections and [they can do it] anywhere.’
Simelene was responding to a question by the Swazi Observer newspaper after Witwatersrand
University in South Africa hosted a dialogue on the national election due in Swaziland later this year.
Political
parties banned in Swaziland were invited to the meeting.
According to
the Observer, Simelene said the
parties were, ‘practicing their democratic right to expression and assembly,
and government had no business stopping them’.
He told the Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by
King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, ‘Everyone is free to speak about the
elections and anywhere.’
But, what he said is demonstrably not true. The regime, headed by
King Mswati, has steadfastly refused to allow any discussion about the election
or the political system in the kingdom to take place.
On 12 April, democrats wanted to mark the 40th
anniversary of King Sobhuza’s Royal Decree that in 1973 turned Swaziland from a
democracy to a kingdom ruled by an autocratic monarch, by holding a publicmeeting to discuss the forthcoming national election in Swaziland. All
political parties are banned from taking part and the meeting was to discuss
why this was so.
Armed police and riot troops, acting without a court
order, physically blocked the restaurant in Manzini where the meeting was to
take place. The police said the meeting was a threat to state security.
A week later, on 19 April, the 45th birthday
of King Mswati III, the banned youth group SWAYOCO tried to hold a rally at
Msunduza Township in Mbabane to discuss the election. Again, police forced themeeting to close. Organisers of the meeting have been charged with sedition.
Following these events, raids on the homes of democracy
activists in Swaziland took place. Wonder Mkhonza, the National Organizing
Secretary of the banned political party the People’s United Democratic Movement
(PUDEMO) was allegedly found in possession of 5,000 pamphlets belonging to
PUDEMO. He has been charged with sedition.
The Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) and the
Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC), in a joint statement, said police in
Swaziland were now a ‘private militia’ with the sole purpose of serving the
Royal regime.
In April, the Open
Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) reported to the African
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) meeting in The Gambia that
Swaziland was becoming a ‘military state’. OSISA reported that the Swazi army,
police and correctional services were being deployed to ‘clamp down on any
peaceful protest action by labour or civil society organisations ahead of the
country’s undemocratic elections’.
Separately, the US Embassy in Swaziland voiced its ‘deepconcern’ about the way the police engaged in ‘acts of intimidation and fear’
against people seeking their political rights.
Elections are due to take place later this year, at a
date yet to be announced by King Mswati.
A campaign to boycott the election, because political parties are banned from taking part and because the Parliament that is selected
has no real powers, is gaining momentum.
See also
HUNGRY WILL SELL THEIR VOTES FOR FOOD
SWAZI ELECTION ‘WILL BE A FRAUD’
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