SWAZI KING UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT

I take my hat off to the Swazi News for daring to publish an article that is damning of Swaziland.

In the present climate, following the illegal appointment of Barnabas Dlamini as Prime Minister, where everyone who is critical of the state is considered a ‘terrorist sympathiser’ and liable to be ‘dealt with’ by the authorities, it takes some courage to print something that says that King Mswati III is in effect unaccountable to his people.

The article, published today (25 October 2008), is written by Terence Corrigan, a researcher and seminar facilitator at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg, South Africa. I wrote about this article when it first appeared on AllAfrica.com in September 2008.

Corrigan uses the recent election in Swaziland as a springboard to unpick the problems in Swaziland today.

He writes, ‘Swaziland’s parliamentary elections have underlined the dire and longstanding problems that confront the small southern African nation.

‘The country needs seriously to reconsider its political arrangements if it is to deal with the challenges it faces.

‘Voting in the nation of a little more than one million people went ahead smoothly – in a technical sense – last month. But the country cannot be called a democracy; it is an absolute monarchy in which parties are banned and candidates must stand as individuals.

‘The country’s constitution is quite explicit on this: the king – currently King Mswati III – is “immune from suit or legal process in any case in respect of all things done or omitted to be done by him.” This is not unique for a monarch, but in Swaziland the king has a direct role in governance, so the provision severely abridges his accountability.’

On the monarchy, he writes, ‘[...], it is difficult to gauge what Swazis truly feel about the monarchy. The country is heavily rural, and most rural people depend on land and therefore their livelihoods on chiefs who are answerable to the king. The society is a deeply traditional one, and throughout history people have venerated their monarchs as rulers ordained by God, fathers and protectors of the nation and custodians of culture. Swazi royalists have played on this, to the extent that clergy who support them have condemned democracy as anti-Christian. But the mystique is fraying: for example, women demonstrated against the recent royal shopping trip, saying the money should have been used for anti-retroviral drugs.’

He concludes, ‘Right now, Swaziland’s royal order faces no imminent threat, internal or external. If King Mswati III does not seize the opening he still has to initiate reform – albeit at the cost of some of his own power – the alternative is likely to be a gradual crumbling of the country, sometimes violently, which will bring a disorder.’

To read the full article, click here.

See also

SWAZILAND ELECTION ANALYSIS

SWAZILAND ELECTION ANALYSIS

The results of Swaziland’s election confirm the immaturity of the kingdom’s political system.

Preliminary results suggest that only 15 of the kingdom’s 55 sitting MPs were re-elected by voters – the rest were thrown out. There are still five elections to be held.

In most nations that would be an overwhelming defeat of a sitting government party and a rejection of its policies. But in Swaziland political parties are banned and people do not vote for ‘policies’.

Voters can only elect individuals and this means that the election is reduced to a beauty contest: you pick the candidate that you like the look of.

In the election that took place on Friday (19 September 2008) candidates did not compete against one another in terms of what they would do if they were elected to parliament. This is simply because one single MP working alone can’t achieve anything once elected. It is only by working in consort with other MPs that polices can be put forward to parliament and accepted. That is the value of political parties. A party will enter an election with a manifesto of policies it wants to put into action once elected. Voters choose the party (and its manifesto) that they prefer and the party with most MPs forms the government.

At the Swazi election there was no discussion about policies, the best that voters were offered were essentially empty promises from candidates. Candidates talked in vague ways about bringing ‘development’ to their areas (without stating how this would be achieved). Or they made promises such as increasing the grants to elderly people that they knew they had no way of delivering.

At the next parliament there will be close to 40 inexperienced MPs who mostly won’t have a clue what they are meant to do. Not a very promising future for Swaziland.

Mbho Shongwe in his weekly column in the Times of Swaziland today (23 September 2008) has also been reflecting on what happens to Swaziland now the elections are over.

He is not optimistic, seeing ‘social and welfare problems in government hospitals and clinics, shortages of drugs and medication in government clinics and hospitals, high prices of bread, petrol, paraffin, transport, foodstuff [and a] high rate of unemployment’ as urgent issues to be tackled.

To read the full article click here.

There is more pessimism in an analysis by Terence Corrigan of the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg. In an article for allafrica.com he quotes my own view that Swaziland is heading for a complete economic meltdown within five years.

Corrigan says there is repression in Swaziland, ‘not of the violent kind practiced in Zimbabwe – but experienced rather as harassment, accompanied by the fear that courts might not offer protection (although at times they have)’.

He concludes, ‘Right now, Swaziland’s royal order faces no imminent threat, internal or external,’ but he wrote the article before news emerged of the bomb attempt that killed two people in Swaziland last Sunday.

To read his full article click here

See also

ELECTIONS

SWAZILAND ELECTIONS 2008 BLOGSITE