King Mswati III the absolute monarch of Swaziland /
Eswatini has appointed eight members of his Royal Family to the kingdom’s
Senate. This is
in addition to the six he previously appointed to the House of Assembly.
In an unexplained move, the King appointed Prince
Hlangabeza to both the House and the Senate.
The announcement came on Thursday (18 October 2018)
and follows national elections that are widely
discredited outside of Swaziland as undemocratic. No member of the
Swazi Senate are elected by the people; the King appoints 20 and members of the
House of Assembly elect 10.
The King’s appointments underline the lack of
democracy in Swaziland. Elections for the House of Assembly were held on 21
September 2018. Political parties are banned from taking part and people are
only allowed to select 59 members; the King appoints a further 10.
Ten members of the Senate were elected by members of
the House of Assembly on Tuesday amid reports of widespread bribery. The Times
of Swaziland reported on Thursday
that police were investigating after votes were said to have been sold for
between E20,000 and E40,000. In Swaziland seven in ten of the estimated 1.1
million population have incomes less than the equivalent of US$2 (about E30) a
day.
The Times
said the bribery allegations came to light after one unsuccessful Senate
candidate whom it did not name demanded her money back from members of the
House of Assembly.
The Observer on
Sunday newspaper, which is in effect owned by King Mswati, said in an editorial
comment (14 October 2018), ‘It is now an open secret that the 10 seats
available for Senate, to be chosen by the MPs, are now sold to the highest
bidder.’
Vusi Kunene, a columnist for the Times
of Swaziland, criticised Swaziland’s Elections and Boundaries Commission
for not taking action. He
wrote, ‘That it is no longer a secret that there is a lot of vote
buying and the institution, which is supposed to guard against such, is silent,
is worrying.’
The buying of Senate seats in Swaziland is common. In the run-up to the election Ncumbi
Maziya, a Commissioner at the EBC, told a workshop for election candidates that
members of parliament charged
E60,000 for their vote.
The Swazi Observer newspaper reported
in August 2018, ‘He said parliamentarians are the most corrupt people. He said
he has since gathered that parliamentarians are swindling money from people who
want to make it into Senate.
It added, ‘Maziya said he learnt that people are made
to fork out money amounting to E60,000 if they want to get a vote to be elected
into Senate. “If you have no money you won’t make it into Senate,” Maziya
stated.’
In a separate development, the Times
of Swaziland reported on Friday
two unnamed candidates for the Senate election had secretly been disqualified
because they had failed police vetting. It reported, ‘their
past was found wanting’. It gave no further details.
It added, ‘Vetting is the process of
performing a background check on someone before offering them employment,
conferring an award, or doing fact checking prior to making any decision.’
It said, ‘To save face, some of the MPs
[Members of Parliament] continued to elect the candidates who had not passed
the vetting stage, although it was clear from the counting of the votes that
they did not stand a chance to win.’
It added, ‘Chief Police Information and
Communications Officer (PICO) Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, said as
the police they could not divulge any information on the vetting of
individuals.
‘“The process that is undertaken is highly confidential and therefore,
for security reasons, one cannot state what happens,” said Vilakati.’
See also
Swaziland King appoints six of his own family to
House of Assembly and more expected in Senate House
Swaziland
Election Officer Reveals MPs Sell Their Votes When Electing Kingdom’s Senators
Swaziland
(Eswatini) Election 2018: Links to Information and Analysis From Swazi Media
Commentary
https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2018/09/swaziland-eswatini-election-2018-links.html
Organised Certainty, Why elections in Swaziland are not democratic
Organised Certainty, Why elections in Swaziland are not democratic
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