The national election announced
in Swaziland / Eswatini for 21 September 2018 will not give people the
opportunity to elect a government. Political parties are banned from taking
part and the poll is an exercise to entrench King Mswati III’s position as
absolute monarch.
After the election, the King will chose the
Prime Minister, government ministers and the top civil servants and judges. At past elections people only got
to select 55 of 65 members of the House of Assembly. The King chose the other
10. At the forthcoming election there will be an additional four seats for
people to vote for. It has not been announced how many members the King will
choose but the Swaziland Constitution allows him to pick up to ten.
As in
previous years, none of the 30 members of the Swazi Senate will be elected by
the people; the King will choose 20 and the other 10 will be chosen by members
of the House of Assembly.
The political system which only allows
people to vote for individuals and not parties has traditionally been known as
tinkhundla. In 2013 King Mswati changed the name to Monarchical
Democracy. Whatever they are called, international observers have
for many years recognized the elections that are held every five years are
illegitimate.
The Institute
for Security Studies in 2012 said tinkhundla elections could
essentially be defined as ‘organised certainty’, since they reproduced the
prevailing political status quo in Swaziland. It went on to say, ‘The ruling
regime enjoys an unchallenged monopoly over state resources, and elections have
increasingly become arenas for competition over patronage and not policy.
This view is not confined to the ISS. The
2013 election
observation report of the Commonwealth Expert Team questioned the
elections’ credibility because they resulted in ‘a Parliament which does not
have power’, because of the ban on political parties.
The
United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office in
a report on Swaziland in 2013 said there was no effective democracy
in Swaziland. ‘The King has the power summarily to appoint and dismiss
ministers, all parliamentary candidates require the approval of their chief
(who is dependent on the monarch for wealth and power) and while political
parties are not forbidden, they are banned from participating in elections. All
candidates must run as independents.’
The European Union Election Experts Mission
(EEM), in its report on the 2013 election, made much of how the kingdom’s
absolute monarchy undermined democracy.
In its report it
stated, ‘The King has absolute power and is
considered to be above the law, including the Constitution,
enjoying the power to assent laws and immunity from criminal proceedings. A
bill shall not become law unless the King has assented to it, meaning that the
parliament is unable to pass any law which the King is in disagreement with.
‘The King will refer back the provisions he
is not in agreement with, which makes the parliament and its elected chamber,
the House of Assembly, ineffective, unable to achieve the objective a
parliament is created for: to be the legislative branch of the state and
maintain the government under scrutiny.’
The EEM went on to say the ‘main principles
for a democratic state are not in place’ in Swaziland.
The EEM was not alone in recognising
Swaziland as undemocratic. In its report on conduct of the 2013 election, the
African Union (AU) mission called for fundamental changes to ensure people had
freedom of speech and of assembly. The AU said the Swaziland Constitution
guaranteed ‘fundamental rights and freedoms including the rights to freedom of
association’, but in practice ‘rights with regard to political assembly and
association are not fully enjoyed’. The AU said this was because political
parties were not allowed to contest elections.
The AU urged Swaziland to review the
constitution, especially in the areas of ‘freedoms of conscience, expression,
peaceful assembly, association and movement as well as international principles
for free and fair elections and participation in electoral process’.
In its report
on the 2013 elections, Commonwealth observers recommended that
measures be put in place to ensure separation of powers between the government,
parliament and the courts so that Swaziland was in line with its international
commitments.
They also called on the Swaziland
Constitution to be ‘revisited’. The report stated, ‘This should ideally be
carried out through a fully inclusive, consultative process with all Swazi
political organisations and civil society (needed, with the help of constitutional
experts), to harmonise those provisions which are in conflict. The aim is to
ensure that Swaziland’s commitment to political pluralism is unequivocal.’
Richard Rooney
See also
WHY SWAZILAND ELECTION IS BOGUS
KING’S BOGUS CLAIM ON DEMOCRACY
THE CASE FOR POLITICAL PARTIES
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