SWAZI MINISTERS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

It is not only Swaziland’s Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini who is in office illegally, so are his ministers.

I wrote yesterday (7 March 2009), that Dlamini was trying to convince Swazis that he and the Deputy Prime Minister were not actually ‘ministers’. The reason it is important to Dlamini for this falsehood to be believed rests on the Swazi Constitution.

Section 67 (iii) says that a half of government ministers must have been elected to parliament. If you count the Prime Minister and his deputy, the number of ministers appointed to office by King Mswati III, unelected, exceeds half.

It comes as no surprise in Swaziland’s ‘unique’ democracy that the King reckons he can put anyone he chooses in the Cabinet. But, Swaziland does now have a constitution and even King Mswati needs to abide by it.

Of course, he doesn’t care. He will continue to do what he likes. He did after all illegally appoint Barnabas Dlamini as Prime Minister last year.

So there you have it: Swaziland has an illegitimate Prime Minister and illegitimate ministers. Who now can call Swaziland a democracy?

SWAZILAND PM NOT CONSTITUTIONAL

Barnbas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, has been telling Swazi editors that he is not a minister.

That’s ‘minister’ as in political leader, not ‘minister’ as in man of the church.

Dlamini went to great length to make his case when he met Swazi media editors at their regular monthly editors’ forum this week.

I’m not too sure why he felt the need to say this, but according to a report in today’s Weekend Observer he quoted the Swazi Constitution section and sub section.

This exercised Weekend Observer editor Alec Lushaba so much he wrote at great length in his newspaper today (7 March 2009) to point out that Dlamini is indeed a minister.

Good for Lushaba, but he and Barnabas Dlamini missed a vital point.

Barnabas Dlamini is not a legitimate Prime Minister. Section 67 (i) of the constitution says ‘The King shall appoint the Prime Minister from among members of the House [of Assembly] acting upon the recommendation of the King’s Advisory Council.’

Barnabas Dlamini was not a member of the House of Assembly. He was elected by nobody. He was appointed to the House only so he could be Prime Minister.

Dlamini is not therefore legally Prime Minister.

ILLEGAL SWAZI P.M. BULLIES PRESS

The Times of Swaziland editor Martin Dlamini has been writing about how Barnabas Dlamini operates with the media.

Dlamini was illegally appointed Prime Minister by King Mswati III earlier this month (October 2008) and given the public mandate by the king to get the ‘terrorists’ and all who support them.

Dlamini was previously PM in Swaziland from 1996 to 2003 and his term in office was characterised by a reign of terror against the Swazi people and a complete disregard for the rule of law in Swaziland.

Now, it seems, Dlamini also had a high hand with journalists in the kingdom.

Martin Dlamini writing in the Times on Friday (24 October 2008) recalled that the PM would insist that he saw any report about him that was destined to go in the newspapers before it was published.

Martin Dlamini didn’t comment on this but, of course, in Swaziland, where all broadcasting is state controlled this is not unexpected, but the fact that the man assumes he can do this with the free press tells us a lot about how he will not allow any dissent in the kingdom.

In the past the PM would also inspect every report that had been published about him and complain about anything he disliked – right down to the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. (He has my email address if he wants to comment on this blog).

Get it wrong and ‘all hell lets loose,’ according to Martin Dlamini.

‘He politely requires a correction but with firmness in his voice that has all the characteristics of a military order.’

This is bad news in Swaziland where censorship and self-censorship is rife. If the PM continues his bullying tactics against the press we will get less information about what is really going on in Swaziland than the little we do already.

Last Thursday when the PM announced members of the king’s new cabinet, he walked out immediately the list was read and refused to take questions from journalists.

The clock really is turning back in Swaziland.

See also

BARNABAS DLAMINI

SATIRE ALIVE AND WELL IN SWAZILAND

Last Thursday King Mswati III of Swaziland, sub-Saharan Africa’s last autonomous monarch, ignored his own constitution and appointed Barnabas Dlamini, a man with a record of human rights abuses, as Prime Minister.

Political parties have been banned in Swaziland since 1973, the Swazi Parliament has no real powers, and the king makes all important decisions. The king appoints one in seven MPs and two thirds of the Senate House.

Yesterday, (20 October 2008) King Mswati chaired a committee of the Southern African Development Community at which he intended to ‘urge’ Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to share power with opposition politicians against his will.

And they say satire is dead .....

LIFE UNDER AN ILLEGAL PREMIER

Speculation is rife about what Swaziland’s new Prime Minister will do now that he is taking up office.

Barnabas Dlamini was PM in Swaziland from 1996 to 2003 and his tenure in office was one of terror, the abuse of the human rights of Swazis and a disregard for the rule of law.

Thulani Thwala, the editor of the Swazi News, has been remembering what life was like in Swaziland the last time Dlamini was PM.

Writing in the Swazi News on Saturday (18 October 2008), Thwala said that last time Dlamini ‘let loose his cops then, to beat the hell out of marchers in Manzini and later claimed they banged their heads against the walls.

‘This is the very same man who defied court orders reinstating back two evicted chiefs from KaMkhweli and Macetjeni and later declared himself a lightning arrester. Listen to that nonsense where a bully elevates himself to some imaginary levels. I will not behave like some idiots who have come out to declare that [Dlamini] is the right person for the job. Most of the praise singers are suspect.’

Thwala speculates on what we might expect from Dlamini this time in office.

‘[Dlamini] would do anything to please the king and it gets worse when he gets such an open ended mandate to ‘DEAL’ with people. The last time he was PM he ‘DEALT’ with people without such a public mandate and it can only get ugly this time.

‘From where I am sitting the country is back to where it belongs- the dustbin of history. The king appealed to us to support [Dlamini] but I did not hear him appealing for same from the bully. I know in life we have to give people the benefit of doubt but with [Dlamini] I refuse. Some habits die hard!

Thwala said, ‘From where I am sitting it would be imperative for workers, unions and progressives to forget about meetings because they will be crushed by [Dlamini] who has the mandate to do things as he pleases.

‘Throttling people is [Dlamini’s] favourite game and defying court orders is his life and blood. The country is back to old times and it’s not funny. I am yet to hear what our foreign envoys would say about this because they were amongst the worried lot when he ran the show in his last term as PM.’

See also

BARNABAS DLAMINI