Moz elections are proof of the pudding

Certain people support any current political system because of fear of change or uncertainty of the competition associated with the change.

The Berlin wall, built by former East Germany rulers to prevent the Germans from crossing to the West Germany to enjoy freedom, is a good indicator of fear by leaders and their supporters to let go of borrowed power.
Huge resources were spent on this wall and many people died trying to cross over and 20 years ago to-date, this wall was destroyed, ushering in the Germany we know, although the Germans still remember the traumatic experiences of the wall.

The remaining debris is now a tourism attraction but not with happy memories.
How many Swazis have been traumatised by the Tinkhundla regime; those still inside the country and those who decided to run for their dear lives, now living in the neighbouring/overseas countries?

Of course, this might mean nothing to those who blindly support Tinkhundla as a perfect political system.
There are Swazis out there who are keen to use the scarce resources to build walls in their minds between Tinkhundla and multi-party systems without thinking that one day that this wall will be destroyed and multi-party endorsed in Swaziland.
Out of the 15 countries in the region, Swaziland is the only country that has not embraced multi-party democracy. Although Swaziland holds elections, these fall short of genuine elections as universally known by the regional countries.

There are certain principles and rules that are followed when conducting elections to encourage and enable observation to be undertaken. Then, genuine elections are about groups with national agenda. This agenda must be the source of motivation to the electorate to vote for the particular political group.
However, Mozambique had her 4th general elections on October 28, 2009.

Who would have believed, that Mozambique accepting multi-party democracy in 1990 considering the history of liberation and civil war there? Walls have been falling on their own or forced by regional demands and internal pressures.

The Mozambicans were voting for the President, Assembly of the Republic and the Provincial Assemblies with 17 political parties and two coalitions. Not all these were standing within the provinces for presidential, legislature and provincial assemblies, e.g. only FRELIMO and RENAMO had competed for all levels of the elections. In the presidential, these were joined by MDM, a new party.

The National Elections Commission (CNE) has representatives from FRELIMO and RENAMO drawn from previous Parliament proportion. Counting was done at the polling stations immediately after voting was closed at 6.00 pm, indicating that those who were in the queue at the time had to vote, thus delaying start of counting.
The Constitution of the Republic and the Electoral Act, July 2007 spells out how the voting, counting, tallying at sub-district, district, province and national should be done.

By October 31, 2009 tabulation of results at the provincial level should have been completed, between November 2 and 12, the CNE must make an official disclosure of the general elections results and further forward the reports and notices of the final settlement to the Constitutional Council.

The Constitutional Court has 33 days to examine these documents, investigate eventual claims and finally endorse the final results. Besides, the CNE, Mozambique has the Electoral Observatory (OEM) which had deployed over 1 000 domestic observers countrywide. This is in addition to the international observers who were coming from African Union, SADC Elections Commission, SADC Parliamentary Forum, SADC members countries, European Union, Commonwealth, Portuguese Speaking countries in Africa, etc all to provide a hawk eye on the elections.

Furthermore, meeting CNE, leadership, some members of the Constitutional Council, government officials, candidates or representatives of competing political parties, attending rallies, listening to broadcasts and reading newspapers help in the assessment of the political environment leading up to the polling date thus determining the state of preparedness of the elections.

Therefore, so long as voting is conducted secretly in a ballot paper, the electorate must always participate in the elections. The Mozambicans showed the willingness to cast their votes without any sign who they would vote for.
Generally, elections are characterised by tension before the polling day caused by fear of rigging, losing, confidence of winning  and naked intimidation by the ruling party and opposition. After the polling time and the tickling results, there are signs of happiness or anger. I cannot claim any authority of election observations but have learnt something about how the electorate behave before and after the polling days.

In the case of Mozambicans, they were cool throughout these processes. Instead, they continued with their lives and hectic daily activities, no partying, no wearing of political party t-shirts or colours. Yours truly, was deployed by the African Union Observer Mission to Cabo Delgado Province at Pemba city. Two days later, returned to Maputo and the situation and behaviour were the same.

It seems Mozambicans did not want to spark any anxiety that could raise anger to the losing candidate and provocative happiness to the winning one thus resulting in conflicts and violence. Well, it appears, the coalition was initiated to weaken MDM at the same time strengthening FRELIMO in Parliament and retaining RENAMO as the main opposition.

So democracy is settling in the region and elections are the only way of putting people into government. Swaziland under the undemocratic Tinkhundla regime is surrounded by multi party democratic systems which have huge populations (22 million in the east and 48 million north-west-south) suggesting that it cannot escape the high concentration of democracy from its neighbours and the region.

Finally, it is unfortunate that some supporters of the Tinkhundla regime want to associate multi-party system with illegal political entities and as if these will be the only political parties if multi-partism is ushered in. Swazis must be free to form these political parties and compete for good governance. As a nation, we must resist dominance of any political ideology and philosophy of governance, the electorate must decide through the ballot paper.

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