KING’S NEW THREAT TO CONSTITUTION

News that Swaziland’s autocratic ruler King Mswati III wants the kingdom’s constitution amended so that things he has done illegally in the past become legal will surprise no one who observes the way he operates.

In particular, the king illegally appointed Barnabas Dlamini Prime Minister in 2008. The constitution states the PM must be a member of the Swazi Senate, but Dlamini was not.

The Times Sunday newspaper in Swaziland reported the amendments would ‘incorporate, among other things; prerogatives of His Majesty the King, which were mistakenly omitted’. 

Who says they were ‘mistakenly omitted’ is not reported by the newspaper.

Prince Guduza, Speaker in the House of Assembly, told the newspaper there were moves afoot to amend the constitution, but he would not be drawn on which parts.

The newspaper reported the Prince ‘said he would not disclose the provisions that should be amended. He hinted though that those provisions were political in nature.’

Observers of Swaziland’s recent history know that the constitution of 2005 is not worth the paper it is written on. The king chooses to ignore it whenever he wishes.

The most recent and most stark example of this happened in October 2012 when the House of Assembly passed a vote of no-confidence in the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. According to the constitution the king was obliged to sack the government (he had no discretion in the matter).

However, King Mswati, who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, ignored the vote. Instead, through his traditional structures he put pressure on the House to re-run the vote, this time ensuring it did not pass and the government survived.

Many organisations have called for Swaziland’s constitution to be rewritten in the past, but their intentions were to make the kingdom more democratic, not less.

In July 2008, the European Union declined an invitation to monitor the Swaziland national election because, it said, it was clear the kingdom was not a democracy. Later, it suggested a wholesale review of the constitution was in order.

In November 2008, the Commonwealth Expert Team, which had monitored the election called for a review because the elections were not credible since political parties were banned in Swaziland.

It said that the review ‘should be carried out through a process of full consultation with Swazi political organisations and civil society (possibly with the support of constitutional experts).’

There was very little credibility in the way in which the constitution was originally drawn up. King Mswati invited the International Bar Association (IBA) to review the first draft of the constitution and the IBA’s verdict was damning.

The report called the constitution ‘flawed’ and went so far as to cite one critic who called the constitution ‘a fraud.’

One of the IBA’s main conclusions was that the ‘position and powers’ of some ‘stakeholders’ in Swaziland, ‘including the Monarchy’ are in effect ‘actually placed above the constitution and its principles’.

The IBA said that the judiciary and NGOs were not allowed to contribute to the drafting process and individual Swazi people were interviewed in the presence of their chiefs. As a result the ‘overwhelming’ majority wanted the king to keep all his powers and wanted the position of traditional advisers to the king to be strengthened. They also wanted Swazi customs to have supremacy over any international rights obligations.

Considering how the ‘consultation’ of the Swazi people was conducted it is no surprise they reached this conclusion.

SWAZI PM UNDER THE COSH

Prince Guduza, Speaker of the Swaziland House of Assembly, has rebuked Barnabas Dlamini, the Prime Minister, for ‘interference of the highest order’, after the PM met MPs one-by-one to try to influence them about a land sale scandal he is embroiled in.

Prince Guduza, called such meetings ‘improper’.

Dlamini, who was illegally appointed Prime minister in 2008 by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, is at the centre of a corruption scandal over illegally purchasing government land at a vastly reduced price. Accused with him are millionaire Themba Masuku, the Deputy Prime Minister; four members of the Swazi Royal Family and at least nine cabinet ministers (past and present).

The Swazi Parliament decided to set up a seven-member select committee to investigate the matter. On Wednesday (12 January 2011), I reported Dlamini had called MPs in to see him ‘one-by-one’ to try to get them on his side.

Now, it has emerged that MPs told Speaker Guduza of the meetings.

Guduza reacted with vigour, telling Parliament that as a matter of principle, interactions or utterances by anyone about a matter being investigated by Parliament was tantamount to interference of the highest order.

The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, reported that Guduza likened this to a person who engages a jury on a matter that is before court. This, he said, was unacceptable.

The Speaker said by talking to the MPs the PM compromised the independence of the legislature.

‘It is improper to discuss a matter that might involve you with the people who will handle it, especially if you might be a potential witness.’

Although Guduza did not mention Barnabas Dlamini by name it is clear that he was the intended target.

The Times reported that Guduza said he was not happy about allegations that the meetings involving the PM and MPs were to discuss, among other things, the government land allocations.

This is not the first time that the Speaker of Parliament has had to rebuke Prime Minister Dlamini. In February 2010 he had to slap down Dlamini after the PM said he was the head of Parliament and therefore not answerable to it.

FORMER SWAZI PM WAS ALSO CONNED

Barnabas Dlamini is not the only Swaziland Prime Minister to be conned by the World Citizen Awards –Themba Dlamini, his predecessor, also fell for the scam.

As we all know by now, Barnabas flew to the Bahamas for an award ceremony on Saturday (2 October 2010) expecting to get a medal for his humanitarian work, his love of human rights and for being a substantial world figure.

The whole thing was a scam, organised by a well-known con artist in the Bahamas called Rudy King.

We have still to get an explanation from Barnabas or the Swazi Government about how he fell for the scam and what inquiries it made before agreeing to accept the award.

But he is not the first Swazi Prime Minister to fall for the trick. In October 2007, Themba Dlamini, who was then Swazi PM, flew off to the Bahamas to accept a similar medal. The trip caused annoyance back in Swaziland, because Themba took his wife and his personal pastor on the trip with him at the taxpayers’ expense.

Luckily for Themba, the scam wasn’t made public, but we can’t be sure whether he rumbled something was wrong, and was too embarrassed to admit his foolishness, and just kept quiet.

Of course (even more foolishly perhaps) he might not have realised he was the victim of a con.

Oddly, Themba went to collect the award, without knowing what it was for, according to a report in October 2007 published in the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily. The government’s official spokesman Percy Simelane and the ex-PM himself have never publicly explained what Themba did to deserve the award.

The Times tried to find out how much the trip cost, but was told that that information was ‘confidential’.

Its companion newspaper the Times Sunday followed up the story about Themba and his personal pastor in January 2008.

It reported that the pastor accompanied the PM, and this fact was accepted, but nobody explained why the pastor was needed.

The Times Sunday reported Percy Simelane saying that the PM paid for the costs of the pastor’s trip. But the newspaper also quoted ‘sources’ saying that the Swazi taxpayer footed the bill.

So we have a conflict here. Who really paid the bill? We still don’t know because there is no freedom of information law in Swaziland and if the government says ‘we won’t tell you’ that’s pretty much the end of the argument.

Con man Rudy King obviously knew it was easy to scam members of Swaziland’s ruling elite. As well as Barnabas Dlamini and Themba Dlamini he also caught two members of the Swazi Royal Family. Prince David got his gong in 2006 and Prince Guduza is listed by the World Citizen Awards organisation as having received one also between 2007 and 2009.

SPEAKER SLAPS DOWN ILLEGAL P.M.

The Speaker of the Swaziland House of Assembly has told Barnabas Dlamini, the illegally-appointed Prime Minister to his face that he is answerable to Parliament.

Dlamini had asserted earlier in the week that he was answerable to no one, and even King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch had to consult him on some matters.

Yesterday (26 February 2010,) Speaker Prince Guduza told Dlamini and the whole House of Assembly that the Prime Minister answered to Parliament.

The House was meeting to hear Finance Minister Majozi Sithole deliver his annual budget speech, but before e could begin Speaker Guduza read a prepared statement.

In it he said, contrary to the PM’s assertion, the PM was not head of Parliament, instead, the king was.

He said, ‘No member or individual of this House, regardless of his status or position is above the authority of the Speaker. On the contrary, the Speaker is accountable to this House in its collective form and to His Majesty the King.’

He said the Swaziland Constitution sections 68 and 69 made this clear.

He said anyone who said otherwise ‘should be condemned by all law abiding citizens’.

Senate President Gelane Zwane had previously said that there was a separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary in Swaziland. Dlamini angrily denounced Zwane and told the kingdom that he was in complete control.

In what may have been a reference to Dlamini’s subsequent bullying of Zwane, the Speaker said, ‘Intimidation, manipulation of politicians by another, and in part, using the treasury as battle-ground to settle political scores is devoid of civilised decency and smacks of flagrant abuse of State power.’

The Prime Minister reacted angrily to the Speaker. Dlamini told the Speaker in the House of Assembly, ‘We will answer on what you have just said. You should not take advantage just because you’re the Speaker.’

The Speaker called the PM to order and instructed him to stick to what was in the order paper and nothing more.

According to the Swazi News, an independent newspaper, ‘During recess, legislators conversed in hush tones regarding what had happened inside the chamber; with others predicting that more was still to come.’

More still to come? Yes, I think that’s a fair prediction. Dlamini will not want to take this, but he has now been publicly reminded of his limited powers by both the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Assembly. If he continues to abuse his power he will no longer be able to claim that Swaziland is a democracy.

PRINCE SUES ‘TIMES OF SWAZILAND’

A brother of Swazi King Mswati III is suing the Times of Swaziland for alleged defamation.

Prince Guduza, who is also Speaker of the House of Assembly, wants the newspaper to pay him E2 million (about 285,000 US Dollars) for articles it published about his involvement with a company that allegedly illegally imported cigarettes worth E17 million into Swaziland.

The move is not entirely unexpected since in Swaziland people in powerful positions, including Parliamentarians, often sue the independent media in order to try to intimidate them into silence. Often, after the initial threat, no court case actually takes place. However, the threat of action is often enough to quieten troublesome journalists.

The Nation magazine, an independent monthly comment journal, is currently in court battling a lawsuit by a government official who is suing the magazine for alleged defamation. The official had recently won damages after the Nation failed to appear in court to defend the case. But the Nation later won an order for stay of execution and the case is yet to be argued in court.

In 2007, the Times had one lawsuit from the Minister of Education dismissed by the High Court on a technicality only to be sued by the Minister of Health and Social Welfare over an article about HIV AIDS.

In the same year, the Swazi Observer was sued by an MP over a report of an alleged assault.

What is common to all the defamation cases is the unrealistically high damages that are claimed.

In a media release on Tuesday (18 March 2008) the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) states that lawyers for Prince Guduza claim that publication of articles in the Times ‘set the tone for further articles and commentaries in the newspaper in which our client was accused of being a liar, unfit to be Speaker of Parliament, abusing his position as Speaker, abuse of power in general and being corrupt and engaging in a generally corrupt relationship with the police.’

For further information on a previous lawsuit against the Times click here

For further information on the Nation case, click here

See also
ONE LAW FOR THE SWAZI PRINCE