Times Of Swaziland: The political difference  between SD, Botswana

The political difference  between SD, Botswana
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The Editor on 06/11/2009 00:00:00


Sir,
Let me congratulate Qalakaliboli Dlamini for his article, ‘How to kill
political parties’.
It has some elements of political maturity in it. But I totally disagree with
most of it. Let me express my disappointment though that you have stopped
believing in the progressive formations of Swaziland.
As a matter of debate, I would like to differ a little bit.
Yes, it is true that multi-party democracy is not perfect. You have highlighted
the issue of Botswana and it’s clear.
Vote
My point, therefore, is; it is the people of Botswana who vote for that party.
Whatever the president might be doing wrong, the Batswana people have a right to
stop it by not voting the ruling party to power (unfortunately they have
recently done the opposite).
The power in Botswana lies with the people. In SD, the power does not lie with
the people because they do not elect the PM, the Cabinet but only useless MPs
who wield no power. When it comes to Mario Masuku being pulled out of the
Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), I am disappointed because this issue was
clearly discussed by PUDEMO.
A member (former in your case) of PUDEMO should know better. The issue was that
the process of appointing the CRC was flawed. The CRC did not carry any mandate
from people. If I may ask, who did that CRC represent? The other reason was
that, the CRC was dominated by Tinkhundla loyalists, the appointment of Mario
and others was just window dressing the whole process.
Selection
In fact, the selection was biased, hence we withdrew Mario. As PUDEMO we have
said a number of times that we will never participate in elections where no
groupings/formations are allowed. Tinkhundla allows only individuals to be
elected not formations. Which mandate am I going to pursue in Parliament as an
individual? As PUDEMO, we want a people’s mandate not a constituency,
individual mandate, hence we don’t participate in those elections.
History has taught us that without sacrifice a nation will never gain freedom.
The problem with Swazis is that they don’t want to sacrifice for their
freedom.
They are scared to die, to go hungry, to go to jail for what they believe in. In
1996, people went back to work because they were too terrified to die, lose jobs
and face jail.
Popularity
The same thing applies to PUDEMO, we have never at any stage lost popularity.
Our membership has been growing every year. Again Swazis are scared to come out
because they fear victimisation. Believe me, we have thousands of members,
educated, non- educated, rich, poor etc. When it comes to Mphandlana Shongwe;
that is your personal hatred of him.
To me that man has sacrificed a lot for our liberation. Don’t be mistaken that
PUDEMO/SWAYOCO is full of uneducated, poor, good for nothing people. I for one,
am very educated, have a well paying job and a proud member of the Umbane. But
if need be, I will leave all that to fight for a better Swaziland.
Zinyane