Swaziland could be heading for the lowest election
turnout in its modern history on Friday (21 September 2018).
Swaziland (recently
renamed Eswatini by King Mswati III) is ruled by an absolute
monarch, political parties are banned from taking part in the election and no
members of the Swazi Senate are elected by the people.
The King chooses the Prime Minister and Government. The people are only
allowed to elect 59 members of the House of Assembly with another 10 appointed
by the King. No members of the Swazi Senate are elected by the people.
This will be the third election since Swaziland’s constitution
came into effect in 2006 and there is mounting evidence that ordinary people in
the kingdom want more democracy.
In the first round of this year’s election for seats
in the House of Assembly (held on 24 August 2018) 156,983 people voted (of the
600,000 the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) said were eligible). That
compared to the 251,278 people who voted in the final round of elections in
2013 and 189,559 who voted in 2008.
In June 2018 after revising the figure the EBC
announced that 544,310
people had registered to vote this year. In the first round (known
as the Primary Election) only 26.16 percent of those eligible voted.
People head for the final round of elections on Friday
and there is no evidence of a surge in interest. The turnout in elections is important as voting is the only way people
in Swaziland have to demonstrate their support (or lack of it) for the
political system. The King and his supporters say that the ordinary people in
Swaziland support the system that the King calls ‘Monarchical Democracy,’ and which he
says is a partnership between himself and the people.
All debate on democratising the kingdom is ruthlessly crushed by King Mswati’s
state police and security forces. Meetings called to discuss democratic
change are routinely disrupted by police and prodemocracy activists are jailed.
Groups that support democracy are banned under the Suppression of Terrorism
Act.
No news media in Swaziland support allowing political parties to contest
elections.
Despite the closing down of political debate in
Swaziland, one independent international group called Afrobarometer has run a
number of polls in recent years surveying the views of ordinary Swazi people.
In
2015, it reported only seven in a hundred Swazi
people said they were ‘very satisfied’ with the way democracy worked in
Swaziland.
More than half (51 percent) did not think the kingdom was a democracy or it was a democracy with major problems.
More than half (51 percent) did not think the kingdom was a democracy or it was a democracy with major problems.
Nearly six in ten people (59 percent) said they were ‘not at all free’
to say what they think. And nearly three-quarters (73 percent) said they were ‘not at all free’
or ‘not very free’ to join any political organisation they wanted.
Afrobarometer is a pan-African, non-partisan research network that
conducts public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, economic conditions,
and related issues across more than 30 countries in Africa. It conducts
face-to-face interviews.
This was not the first time Afrobarometer found a desire for democracy
in Swaziland. In 2014 in a report called ‘Let the People Have a Say’ it said
more than six people in ten in Swaziland said they were not satisfied with the
way democracy worked in the kingdom.
The research surveyed 34-countries in Africa and asked a series of
questions about what people thought about democracy and how democratic they
thought their own country was.
But, only in Swaziland were researchers not allowed to ask a question about whether people rejected ‘one man rule’. In its report Afrobarometer said this was because ‘a near-absolute monarch resists democratization’ in the kingdom.
But, only in Swaziland were researchers not allowed to ask a question about whether people rejected ‘one man rule’. In its report Afrobarometer said this was because ‘a near-absolute monarch resists democratization’ in the kingdom.
A total of 22 percent of people interviewed in Swaziland said they
believed non-democratic governments can be preferable to democracies.
Dissent in Swaziland is often put down by police and state forces, but
86 percent of people rejected military rule for Swaziland.
In
2013, Afrobarometer reported two thirds of Swazi people
wanted the kingdom to become a democracy and they wanted to choose their own
leaders ‘through honest and open elections’. They also strongly disapproved of allowing King Mswati, who rules
Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, to decide on
everything in Swaziland.
An opinion poll conducted by Afrobarometer asked
1,200 Swazis aged 18 or over from across the kingdom how democratic they
thought Swaziland was. Only 12 percent said that at present Swaziland had ‘high
levels’ of democracy. When asked where they would like the kingdom to be ‘in
the future’, 67 percent said they wanted to see ‘high levels’ of democracy.
Afrobarometer reported that 75 percent of people interviewed agreed with
the statement, ‘We should choose our leaders through open and honest
elections.’
Despite King Mswati’s stranglehold on political life in Swaziland, 46
percent of respondents agreed that, ‘Members of Parliament represent the
people; therefore they should make laws for the country, even if the King does
not agree.’
A total of 77 percent of respondents disapproved of abolishing elections
and Parliament, ‘so that the King can decide on everything’.
In
2016, Afrobarometer reported that Swaziland came a long way
last in a survey of 36 African countries looking at political freedom. Of those
asked, ‘In this country how free are you to join any political organisation you
want?’ only 7 percent responded, ‘completely free.’
In addition, only 18 percent of those surveyed said they had complete
freedom of speech and 56 percent said they had complete freedom to vote.
Afrobarometer reported that its survey coincided with the fiftieth
anniversary of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR). With the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR), it formalizes the right to peaceful assembly (Article
21) and freedom of association (Article 22), among other fundamental human
rights.
The report quoted the UN Special Rapporteur saying, ‘freedoms of
assembly and association “are a vehicle for the exercise of many other civil,
cultural, economic, political and social rights, allowing people to express
their political opinions, engage in artistic pursuits, engage in religious
observances, join trade unions, elect leaders, and hold them accountable.” As
such, they play “a decisive role” in building and consolidating
democracy.
Richard
Rooney
See also
Low
Turnout At Swaziland Election Fuels Doubts About Support For King’s Absolute
Monarchy
Swaziland
(Eswatini) Election 2018: Links to Information and Analysis From Swazi Media
Commentary
Organised
Certainty, Why elections in Swaziland are not democratic
Women Election Candidates in Swaziland Forced to
Address Voters on Their Knees to Show Respect For Men
Vote-Rigging
Claims During Swaziland’s Election Grow. Calls For Some Polls To Be Re-Run
Swaziland’s
Independent Observation Group Says Election ‘Free And Fair’ But Identifies Many
Shortcomings
https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2018/09/swazilands-independent-observation.html
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