SWAZI PM ‘FACES NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE’

Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, faces a vote of no confidence in parliament.

Swazi MPs are fed up with his handling of the land corruption scandal and want him and all his Cabinet ministers to be sacked.

The no-confidence vote on the Cabinet could come at the same time MPs vote on the future of Lindiwe Dlamini, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, who allowed the Prime Minister; his deputy, the millionaire Themba Masuku; four members of the Swazi Royal Family and at least nine cabinet ministers (past and present); an array of Mbabane City Council officials and others to purchase government land illegally at discounts of up to 50 percent.

Although MPs are keen to get rid of Lindiwe Dlamini, they believe the entire Cabinet and the Prime Minister should also be sacked.

According to the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, today (16 January 2011), ‘The MPs felt the housing minister did not unilaterally take the decision to award the land illegally to the ministers but cabinet as a whole, was responsible. On his return from Libya, the Prime Minister admitted that cabinet took decisions as a team.’

One MP, close to the revolt, told the newspaper that a report into the land swindle is due to be presented to Parliament soon. ‘The report to be presented to us by the Parliamentary Select Committee probing the matter will show us the direction we should take but we won’t just pass a vote of no confidence on Lindiwe alone. We want the whole cabinet to go home en masse.’

Swazi MPs are angry about a range of bad decisions the Cabinet has collectively made recently. These include the purchase of land from Essa Holmes for E31 million in violation of government procedure and the impromptu closure of the Royal Jozini Big Six development project.

One MP told the Times Sunday, ‘In a period of two years, they have committed three serious mistakes. This is the worst cabinet ever and it has to go home as fast as possible.’

Cabinet has 20 ministers. Never before in the history of Swaziland has a vote of no confidence in Cabinet been passed.

If the MPs did succeed in passing the no-confidence motion, it would not necessarily mean that the Cabinet would stand down. King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, who appointed the PM and cabinet, would make the final decision.

HOW THE KING CONTROLS SWAZILAND

On Monday (3 January 2011), I reported on how King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and his Royal Family were abusing their positions in Swazi embassies across the world.

The way the Royal Family dominates what passes for ‘public life’ in Swaziland is insidious: it invades all parts of the kingdom.

In October 2008, I wrote the following report, which I think is worth digging out the files so that we can be reminded how the king keeps control of ‘his’ kingdom.

SWAZI KING KEEPS IT IN THE FAMILY

There’s nothing quite like a family business for making sure everyone pulls together.

In Swaziland the business of political repression is run by the Dlamini family with the monarch at the head of the family.

Last week we saw a Dlamini appointed head of government (Prime Minister) by King Mswati III. In Swaziland only a Dlamini can be Prime Mimister. There’s no law that says this and it certainly isn’t in the constitution, but that’s the way it is. That’s the way the ruling family holds on to power.

Last week the king also announced his choices for Senate (he chooses 20 out of the 30 places, MPs choose the other ten. None are elected by the people). Four of his choices are princes or princesses and another five are chiefs.

In Swaziland chiefs do the king’s bidding at a local level. People know not to mess with the chief because their livelihood depends on his goodwill. In some parts of Swaziland the chiefs are given the power to decide who gets food that has been donated by international agencies. The chiefs quite literally have power of life and death in such cases and with 65 percent of the population of Swaziland receiving food aid last year that’s some power.

The speaker of the House of Assembly is also a prince.

There have been new appointments to the Swazi National Council Standing Committee (commonly known as Liqoqo). This is the ‘advisory’ body to the king and is in effect the committee that decides the traditional law of Swaziland. And in Swaziland traditional law beats the constitution if ever there is a clash. It is also generally accepted (at least by Liqoqo) that it can veto any decision made by the Swazi parliament.

There are three so-called ‘royal committees’.

The Weekend Observer (18 October 2008) published the names of all three committees and they break down like this.

Liqoqo has 22 members, seven are princes / princesses, six are family Dlamini and three are chiefs.

The 15 members of the Ludzidzini Committee, which advises the Queen Mother, are four princes / princesses, two are Dlamini and four are chiefs.

The third royal committee, the Border Determination Committee, has 12 members, three princes / princesses, three from Dlamini and one chief.

The Times of Swaziland today (22 October 2008) reckons that in total at least 20 princes and princesses and 16 chiefs have been appointed to highly influential decision-making positions that they will occupy for the next five years.

We are still waiting for the king to appoint the cabinet.

With public life in Swaziland effectively carved up by the king to ensure that everyone is singing his praises (if you took away these posts from the family members what would they do all day?) is it any wonder that the kingdom is in the dire state it’s in today?

SWAZI KING’S HOUSING FANTASY

Just as I was beginning to think we had run out of things to include in our Fantasy Watch game, Swaziland's King Mswati III comes up with a humdinger.

He has announced that ‘his government’ will spend E1.5 billion (about 150 million US dollars) over the next three years on houses for the nation.

This announcement got him a standing ovation at the Swaziland parliament.

King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was opening the second session of the ninth parliament. In his ‘state of the kingdom’ address he said Swaziland needed more houses.

Not that the king himself needs any more. He is reckoned to have at least 13 palaces (one for each of his wives) when 70 percent of his one million subjects live in abject poverty earning less than one US dollar a day.

This tells us a lot about the level of political debate in Swaziland. The king can get up and say anything he wants and nobody dares question him. He didn’t say where the E1.5 billion was going to come from because, I assume, he doesn’t know.

Recently the government forced all its departments to cut budgets this year by 14 percent because the kingdom is going broke. Swaziland will lose E4.1 billion from Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) receipts this year. SACU receipts accounted for 66 percent of Swaziland’s budget last year.

There is no money to pay for anything in Swaziland. As soon as the money runs out, schools and hospitals will grind to a halt. Civil servants in all departments will not get paid. The kingdom’s only university will not be able to pay its electricity bills.

The only people who won’t suffer will be the members of Swaziland’s gigantic royal family.

Sorry, but these houses will not get built. If King Mswati really cares about his homeless and destitute subjects let him open up his palaces and let them live there.

NO HINT OF DEMOCRACY IN SWAZILAND

Anyone who thinks that Swaziland’s government is democratically elected hasn’t been paying attention.

I have written a lot about the fact that King Mswati III illegally appointed Barnabas Dlamini as prime minister in October 2008. A prime minister, according to the Swaziland Constitution, must be a member of the House of Assembly: Dlamini was not when he was given the post as head of government.

King Mswati is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch and he keeps a tight grip on his kingdom. Political parties are banned and although there are elections to parliament every five years these have been discredited by most international observers.

King Mswati appoints some MPs and senators and controls the government. Since the last elections held in 2008, King Mswati has ensured that every cabinet minister except one was his own appointment. That means that almost the whole government was unelected. This also includes the office of deputy prime minister.

Anyone who observes how the ruling elite keep a grip on power in Swaziland will not be surprised by this. In a population of one million people, seventy percent live in abject poverty earning less than one US dollar a day. About six in ten people needed food donated from the international community to fend off hunger in the past year.

With Swaziland in such a depressed state, the king is able to control his subjects through patronage. If you add to the list of ministers the other people who owe their jobs (think senior civil service) or their status (chiefs, for instance) to the king you can see how important his patronage is.

Despite the new Swaziland Constitution which came into effect in 2005, very little has changed in the kingdom. Parts of the constitution are simply ignored by the King and his government if it suits them.

The constitution states that at least 30 percent of members of parliament should be women, but this figure was not reached in the last election and there is no strategy in place to see that this happens anytime soon.

Earlier this month (March 2009), the Swazi High Court ruled that in line with the constitution, the Government must introduce free primary schooling for every Swazi child. The government had wanted to ignore this provision.

In 2008 a Suppression of Terrorism Act was introduced and it has consistently been used in an attempt to silence pro-democracy advocates. Journalists have been warned that if they write articles critical of the ruling elite they will be branded terrorists and face up to 25 years in prison and activists have been harassed and jailed by police.

Mario Masuku, president of the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) has been in jail awaiting trial on terrorist charges since November 2008.

Barnabas Dlamini said yesterday (26 March 2009) that there will be a ‘review’ of the constitution. The first thing this review should do is sack the prime minister and his government and run free elections.

TWISTED LOGIC OF SWAZI DEMOCRACY

This is democracy in Swaziland.

King Mswati III, the last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa, illegally appoints Barnabas Dlamini as Prime Minister. Then together they have chosen Prince Gcokoma, a chief and member of the Swazi Royal Family (and also a man who has not been elected by the people), to head up a new ministry to promote the Tinkhundla system of government in Swaziland.

Tinkhundla is the system of government that exists in Swaziland in place of representative democracy. It takes the place of political parties which are banned in Swaziland and operates on the premise that individuals can represent the will of the people. It has been rejected by many groups both inside and outside Swaziland for its lack of democratic credentials.

There are 55 Tinkhundla centres in Swaziland and each elects one member of parliament.

Last month, (February 2009) Dlamini announced that a new government department of Tinkhundla Administration and Development would be created with the mandate to expand the government services made available through Tinkhundla centres.

Musa Hlophe, Co-ordinator of the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (SCCCO), was reported to have ‘laughed his lungs out’ when informed about the creation of the new ministry.

According to the Times of Swaziland, Hlophe said the new ministry was a waste of resources because it would not deliver on socio-economic needs of the citizenry. He said this was not surprising because it was unclear to most people how the Tinkhundla system worked and ‘only those who benefited from it knew how it worked’.

Don’t expect too much from the new department. According to the Swazi Observer, on the day it was announced that Gcokoma would head up the department, he revealed he hadn’t been told anything about it ‘so I cannot say much for now’.

The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, sees something sinister in the creation of the new department. ‘... the changes come across as a re-enforcement of the Tinkhundla system in disguise, given the rising calls for a system change by others’, it said in an editorial comment.

The Times says the move seems, ‘motivated by uncertainty as rising poverty levels have cost the country’s leadership loads of support at grassroots level and something needed to be done to buy time and win back some valuable support’.

The Times has a point. Following the elections in Swaziland in September 2008, the international community almost with one voice condemned the lack of democracy in Swaziland and branded the election a sham. This was repeated only last week by the United States in its annual country review of Swaziland.

Within Swaziland the pro-democracy movement is gaining ground, despite the efforts of the Swazi state to terrorise opposition voices.

The Tinkhundla system is not democratic and is the focus for much of the dissent. The Swazi Government stands or falls by Tinkhundla and that is why it is making to effort to prop up the crumbling structure.