This
is an unedited version of “As I See It” column article published by the Times
of Swaziland on Wednesday, July 10,2013.
By Vusi Sibisi
The Elections Expenses Bill is ill-suited
for the obtaining political dispensation and Members of Parliament in the House
of Assembly were correct in throwing it out the window only to be coerced into
reversing their initial position on this proposed law.
As rightly initially pointed out by Members
of Parliament, the Elections Expenses Bill was and is a misnomer in the lexicon
of the obtaining Tinkhundla political system. Whereas this contentious law may
be suited and even essential in a multiparty democracy, that too is dependent
on whether or not political parties contesting an election get financial
support from government, in which case such funding has to be accounted for ostensibly
because it is bankrolled from the public purse.
In a multiparty democracy it would be the
political parties that would be compelled to disclose their sources of funding,
etc., an environment that would be easy to manage as opposed to requiring
individual candidates, who may number thousands, to make such disclosures to
God knows towards what end.
As I see it, it would almost be impossible
for the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) to ensure adherence to this
law just as it has failed or neglected to curtail premature campaigning by
candidates nurturing hopes of getting into parliament. That much has become
crystal at the wake of aspirant lawmakers coming with all sorts of excurses to host
public parties and other public events in order to garner as much support as
possible from the electorate. Thus far the EBC have been impotent in enforcing
the law barring aspirant parliamentarians from freely campaigning during this
phase of the election process hence to date no one has been brought to book or
disqualified from standing for the elections.
That while the election process was already
underway a raft of proposed elections-related laws was being tabled in the
legislature also did not augur well for the process. Indeed this factor alone
fractured the essence of legislating laws because by the time these laws are
promulgated the first phase of the elections process, voter registration, would
have long been concluded. In an environment where the rule of law is respected,
that would not be acceptable since everything was already in motion yet the
enabling pieces of legislation were still not in place. But then again this is
the Kingdom of eSwatini where anything goes for as long as it pleases those
controlling the levers of political power.
That the Elections Expenses Bill was
returned to the House of Assembly after MPs had deemed it unsuitable under the
Tinkhundla political hegemony is instructive about the political limitations of
elected representatives of the people, and perhaps even those of the obtaining
political status quo. In addition, that the MPs finally succumbed to the
master’s voice by debating and indeed passing the proposed law they had
rejected earlier on is indicative of the fractured and distorted political
processes and hierarchy of this country.
As the guardians of the Tinkhundla
political system often remind anyone who cares to listen, the system is
supposedly based on grassroots democracy. That is, people elect their lawmakers
from among themselves as individuals. Therefore, one assumes that the voice of
parliament is the voice of the people. In a practical sense this means if
parliament has spoken it means the people have spoken ostensibly because
lawmakers enforce the people’s mandate. But in reality we all know that this is
a fallacy because that is not necessarily how the system works and operates. The
system is akin to a Muppet show, which is controlled by the Muppet master who
determines the actions and activities of the Muppets.
As I see it, the turn-around by MPs to pass
what they had earlier on deemed an unnecessary piece of legislation is
reminiscent of their mystifying actions last year when they reversed a no
confidence resolution they had earlier passed on the Cabinet. And if the
lawmakers then were acting on the wishes of the electorate, the people as
echoed by Sibaya, then who can stand against the people if the Tinkhundla
political system is anchored on grassroots democracy, is the question begging
for an answer. And the simple answer to that question is that if MPs can be
coerced and forced into reversing their own decisions that is sufficient proof
that political power does not reside with the people but is resident elsewhere.
That the Elections Expenses Bill is not
only a bad law but is invasive into the private lives of citizens does not
require rocket science. The fear is that this proposed law that now is awaiting
royal assent from the king may just be the beginning in the state’s
all-consuming desire to control citizens as objects it can manipulate anyhow it
feels like just like the Muppet master controls and manipulates Muppets. It
would not be presumptuous that in the near future we may be confronted by
another piece of legislation that requires that we submit our grocery lists for
approval by the state before we can spend our hard earned money.
And that is a grim possibility in our Swazi
polity in which those holding political sway are fond of confronting the person
other than issues. If anyone does not know what motivated the Elections
Expenses Bill, it is the absent citizen because it is common currency that this
law is being promulgated to deal with the Swaziland Democratic Party (SWADEPA),
if not its leader Jan Sithole, after it made it known that it was receiving
financial support from Denmark’s Social Democratic Party. And SWADEPA has also
made it known that its members are participating in the on-going elections
under the auspices of the Tinkhundla political dispensation to accomplish its
stated objective of using the legislature to achieve the much desired political
reforms and transformation.
Can the Tinkhundla political system
continue to claim any democratic credentials when it has become clear that it
is a Frankenstein Monster that will sooner rather than later gobble up anything
in its path.
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