May 9, 2013
PUDEMO outlines road to democracy in Swaziland during visit to Denmark
“Swaziland is a dictatorship where the
king rules by decree. You should go there to see for yourselves how
PUDEMO-members and those who are associated with them are treated.
Conditions are worsening and the youth are becoming increasingly
impatient,” Linus Mavimbela told members of Danish party the Red Green
Alliance, writes Kenworthy News Media.
Linus Mavimbela, International Secretary
of the banned Swazi party the People’s United Democratic Movement
(PUDEMO), visited Denmark between the April 25 and May 2 2013. He was
meant to have been accompanied by PUDEMO’s Organising Secretary, Wonder
Mkhonza, but Wonder was symptomatically arrested by just prior to the
visit, charged with sedition for allegedly being in possession of 5000
political pamphlets.
The visit was part of the Danish
Institute for Parties and Democracy (DIPD) project between PUDEMO and
the Red Green Alliance and centered on the Annual Conference of the Red
Green Alliance. “The conference was very interesting, especially the
open and frank debates where ordinary members took an active part, and
the fact that the Red Green Alliance had succeeded in forming a cohesive
political alliance out of several political parties,” said Mavimbela.
“In Swaziland we also need open and
honest debates and to make the various organisations of the democratic
movement come together and fight for democracy so that we can push the
regime to a point where it is willing to talk. PUDEMO has always
believed in honest dialogue and we have seen the value of this in the
fact that people are beginning to question the way they are governed.”
After the conference, Linus Mavimbela
met with several stakeholders, including DIPD Director Bjørn Førde,
representatives of the Danish Social Democrats, members of the Red Green
Alliance international department and Red Green Alliance MP Christian
Juhl.
”We can learn a lot from the Red
Green Alliance,” Mavimbela told Christian Juhl. “For instance it is
important to understand the people when you are a party official or
politician. You shouldn’t become a career politician, and the Red Green
Alliance has a rotation system and wage cap for this reason.”
PUDEMO has good programmes and will to
implement them, insists Mavimbela. “But we haven’t been able to
implement them properly because we don’t have the resources and because
the regime has clamped down heavily on us for many years.”
“What PUDEMO has done well,” he says,
“is that we have succeeded in making our people understand that another
Swaziland is possible – a Swaziland where political parties are legal
and where two thirds of the population do not have to live in absolute
poverty. But to succeed in bringing about multi-party democracy in
Swaziland we need to show ordinary Swazis that democracy is an option
worth fighting for and worth risking your livelihood for. And we need a
combination of mass mobilization and outside pressure.”
Applying this pressure has been
difficult, however, both because of the dangers of being associated with
PUDEMO – being arrested, tortured, beaten up or killed – and because
the regime rewards those faithful to it with better job opportunities
and other fringe benefits.
“This means that many people are not
focusing on how to achieve democracy but on how to be recognized by the
regime so as to be co-opted and rewarded. Many of these people are not
really loyal to the regime but want the benefits that come with being
associated with the regime,” says Linus Mavimbela. “It is therefore
necessary for all the sectors of the ruling elite – including
traditional leaders and big business – to feel the heat.”
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