GOVERNMENT PRESS STATEMENT
NO: 02/2012
RE: SWAZILAND A THREAT TO SADC PEACE-RESEARCHER
Following The Times Sunday of 15th January, 2011 article to the effect that Swaziland is a threat to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as a result of “growing dissent to the current Tinkhundla System ahead of the 2013 general elections” attributed to an Institute of Security researcher, Dimpho Motsamai, we wish to put the most correct version of the country’s socio-political position as follows:
- Swaziland has never experienced civil war since history and this is not by coincidence but by design which makes the report in question nothing but an optical elusion of the first order purported to mislead cheap audiences.
- The latest World Bank report on Peace and Security ranks Swaziland high in the region.
- Dissent has no nationality and that is why Swaziland like all SADC countries and the rest of the world has its own share of it. As all normal thinking persons would concur with us, dissent does not necessarily mean war but difference in opinion which we feel is healthy for any democracy.
- We had a similar observation more than twenty years ago by a politician who left Swaziland for a neighbouring state to escape ‘civil war’ but the same person has come back to settle in Swaziland.
- The position of non-participation of political parties in general elections was taken by the nation and not imposed on them by leadership. It is embedded in the Constitution of the land which was put together through a ten year transparent consultation process. Among international organizations to make an input to the Constitution was the Commonwealth and the International Bar Association.
- The “democracy now or else” threat attributed to local political parties is defeating the very purpose for which it advocates; it is a dictatorial calling from above, an un-negotiable stance to which the nation is not accustomed as evidenced by their reluctance to take the multi-party route.
- Multiparty seems to be mistaken for democracy, yet it is only a component of democracy and does not necessarily translate to peace.
- Lack of political dialoguing as brought-up by unionist, Vincent Ncongwane in the newspaper article is very much exaggerated as the Constitution provides and protects freedom of expression. The country boasts of several dialogue fora such as the annual SMART Partnership dialogue, social dialogue and Sibaya .
- The submission by political activist, Mphandlana Shongwe that the Tinkhundla System has failed remains dwarfed and beaten by the glaring infrastructural and human development that has been the envy of the region as well as the country’s high literacy rate and the health systems that have always been lauded by the country’s visitors including Heads of State and Government. The Tinkhundla system still pays for students at tertiary level when other systems in the region and beyond stopped many years ago.
- The contention by the Secretary General of the Swaziland National association of Teachers, (SNAT), Muzi Mhlanga in the article to the effect that there should be political will to educate people about multi-party is misguided because the Constitution does not prevent any person from being educated about any viable political system existing in the world.
- Tinkhundla is not a system that has been imposed on the Swazi people but a system that has been endorsed by the majority of Swazi people as evidenced by submissions the nation made at several Vusela consultative Forums and during the Constitution making process. Like in any democracy, it is only the Swazi people who will give political direction the country should follow at any given time. Tinkhundla System of Governance provides for direct representation in Parliament from grass root level as opposed to voting for a party that then picks it’s representation to parliament. The word Tinkhundla simple means constituency and not vampire.
- There is no snow-white political system anywhere in the World. Like all other countries in the region Swaziland indeed faces a lot of challenges, notwithstanding, the unacceptable poverty levels, but Government has put in place a number of programmes and projects to uplift the standard of living for the Swazi people. To that end, as a nation we all need to exert all our efforts towards the noble goal of attaining First World Status.
- Swaziland appreciates being gauged against other countries politically and otherwise based on fact, scientific calculations and unbiased reasoning but shall always tell hallucinations from reasonable scholarly reports.
Percy Simelane 18th January 2012
Government Press Secretary