Kenworthy News Media, 8
August 2018
Swaziland will hold
national elections on September 21. But according to reports that examine the
country’s last national elections in 2013 and many Swazis, Swaziland’s
political system is undemocratic and only serves to keep its absolute monarch
in power, writes Kenworthy
News Media.
Organised
Certainty, a new
study published in July by journalist and former associate professor at the
University of Swaziland Richard Rooney, concludes that Swaziland’s last
national elections in 2013 were “not democratic” and that “the political system
exists to keep the ruling absolute monarchy in power”.
According to Rooney,
bribery, corruption and election blunders were widespread in 2013, women were
banned from nomination for wearing trousers, Swaziland’s police and state
forces clamped down on peaceful political and social dissent, media coverage in
the Swazi media failed to report opposition views, and it took the Election and
Boundaries Commission over three years to formally release the election
results.
Voters in Swaziland will
elect 59 of Swaziland’s 69 members of the country’s House of Assembly at
national elections on September 21. Absolute monarch King Mswati III picks the
remaining ten, as well as most of the Senate, the Prime Minister and the
Cabinet. Political parties are barred from participating in the elections.
The king is above the law
“The lack of democracy in Swaziland is well documented”, Rooney writes in his report. Many other reports point to this fact, as well as to an increase in repression and human rights abuses towards those who advocate a boycott of the elections and campaign for multiparty democracy.
“The lack of democracy in Swaziland is well documented”, Rooney writes in his report. Many other reports point to this fact, as well as to an increase in repression and human rights abuses towards those who advocate a boycott of the elections and campaign for multiparty democracy.
Elections in Swaziland have
“increasingly become arenas for competition over patronage and not policy,”
African NGO the Institute for Security Studies wrote in a report
before the last national elections 2013.
The Commonwealth Observer
Mission Report, who sent over 400 international and local observers to monitor
the 2013 elections, concluded
that the election had showed “major democratic deficits”, amongst other things
because “parliamentarians continue to have severely limited powers, and
political parties continue to remain proscribed … there is considerable room
for improving the democratic system”.
The EU’s Election Experts
Mission, who sent over 150 observers, said
in their report that the elections showed that the Swazi state was unwilling to
tackle “fundamental problems [with] the system of government and the respect
for the principles of separation of power, rule of law and independence of the
judiciary”.
These problems included
that “the King has absolute power and is considered to be above the law” and
that “a bill shall not become law unless the King has assented to it”, the
Election Experts Mission concluded.
The latest annual Freedom
in the World-report from independent watchdog organisation Freedom House gives
Swaziland its lowest score of seven in regard to political rights. The report
concludes that “political dissent and civic or labor activism are subject to
harsh punishment under laws on sedition and other offenses. Those who criticize
the monarchy can also face exclusion from traditional patronage systems”.
And Human Rights Watch
concluded in their 2017 report
that “Swaziland continued to repress political dissent and disregard human
rights and rule of law in 2017”.
Growing dissatisfaction
Many Swazis are becoming increasingly disaffected with their political system.
Many Swazis are becoming increasingly disaffected with their political system.
In a poll
conducted in 2015 by pan-African independent research institute Afrobarometer,
only a third of the population saw Swaziland’s political system as democratic
and only 28 percent were fairly or very satisfied with how democracy works in
Swaziland (down from 36 percent in 2013).
Another Afrobarometer poll
from 2016 revealed Swaziland to be one of the 36 African countries polled that
have seen the biggest positive change in favour of democracy in the previous
five years. In July, another Afrobarometer poll found
that less than four in ten Swazis approve of the job performance of Swaziland’s
Prime Minister and MPs.
Current elections legitimise King’s rule
Political coordinator of the Swaziland United Democratic Front, Wandile Dludlu, is adamant that this year’s elections will in fact only serve to legitimise the power of Swaziland’s absolute monarch King Mswati III.
Political coordinator of the Swaziland United Democratic Front, Wandile Dludlu, is adamant that this year’s elections will in fact only serve to legitimise the power of Swaziland’s absolute monarch King Mswati III.
“The power to govern and to
determine the destiny of Swaziland rests upon the King and therefore Mswati is
always the victor in every election”, he says.
According to a report
from Swaziland’s Elections and Boundaries Commission, 41 percent of the
estimated 600,000 Swazis who were entitled to register voted in the 2013
elections (although the report chooses to conclude that 61 percent of the
414,704 voters who registered to vote actually did so). Less than the 47
percent who voted in 2008.
For this downward
trajectory to change, Swaziland’s needs democratic reform says exiled editor of
Swaziland News, Zweli Martin Dlamini.
“These elections are
meaningless and nothing will change in the country for as long as absolute
powers vests with the King. The voters will elect MPs who will be accountable
to the King not to the people, and until we adopt democratic reforms, nothing
will change”, Zweli Martin Dlamini concludes.
That many people register
to vote simply shows that people are afraid not to, according to President of
the Swaziland Youth Congress Bheki Dlamini.
“The Swazi elections do not
allow any change in the distribution of political power. More and more people
are aware of the uselessness of the elections, but because of fear of reprisals
from the regime’s agents they still register to be part of the elections”,
Bheki Dlamini says.
The
report Organised Certainty can be downloaded free-of-charge here https://www.scribd.com/document/384752084/Organised-Certainty-Why-Elections-in-Swaziland-Are-Not-Democratic
See also
All Public Events Banned in Swaziland on Day of
Primary Election
Swaziland
Police Force Worshippers From Churches to Attend Election Nominations
