FORMER ANC EXECUTIVE MEMBER FOR TIMPHISINI MP POSITION

MBABANE – A former African National Congress (ANC) Executive member in the Mpumalanga Province, Robert Musa Vilakati, is vying for the MP position at Timphisini Inkhundla, under Emvembili Chiefdom.

Vilakati’s ambitions to win a seat in the 12th Parliament transpired in a story that was published by South Africa’s City Press. The publication was actually questioning Vilakati’s citizenship because for one to be a member of the ANC Executive, they should have a South African citizenship. What made it a story for publication by City Press was the possibility that Vilakati was a dual citizenship holder, Eswatini citizenship is required  to be elected into the MP position, which Vilakati is vying for. Vilakati confirmed that he was indeed an active member of the ANC Executive and was also a member of the Nkomazi mayoral committee for at least a decade, when interviewed by this publication.

Citizenship

When explaining how he got the SA citizenship, Vilakati said his mother is a South African, while his father is liSwati. He mentioned that South African laws allowed for a child to be registered under their mother’s surname. Worth mentioning is that prior to the ruling made by the Constitutional Court, which gave the right to unmarried fathers to register their children under their surnames, they could not do so without the consent of the mother. The reason for this was due to the legislative restriction imposed by Section 10 of the Births Act, in South Africa.

Section 10 of the Births Act specifically dealt with the registration of children born out of wedlock. This section expressly provided that, as a general rule, a child born out of wedlock must be registered under the surname of the mother and may only be registered under the father’s name at the joint request of the mother, alongside the father. Simply put, this means that an unmarried father would need the consent of the mother to register the child under his surname. However, Vilakati’s mother was married to his father only that the latter is from Eswatini while his mother is a South African. He shared that when he went looking for a job in South Africa, being somebody who worked in communities, he then got involved in community projects, joined the ANC and was elected into the council of the Nkomazi Town. “My mother is now technically holding a dual citizenship. It was either she surrendered the Eswatini citizenship for me to then enjoy a South African citizenship. But she could not surrender citizenship because she was married in Eswatini,” he explained.

When asked if he denounced his Eswatini citizenship when moving to South Africa, Vilakati said he never did so but his South African citizenship was based on his mother’s citizenship.
“But because my mother decided to stick with the Eswatini citizenship, I then became a full citizen of Eswatini,” he explained. Vilakati said the Department of Home Affairs in South Africa suspended his citizenship after he returned to Eswatini. The Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) Communication Officer, Mbonisi Bhembe, said he would have to consult on what legal implications it had to have a dual citizenship when participating in the elections. However, he did state that to his knowledge, it was not foreign to the commission to have people with a dual citizenship participate in the elections, as they had previous encountered such issues.

Documentation

“If the person is a liSwati by virtue of having the required documentation, then I see no problem, even if they have another citizenship,” he said. Former Nkilongo MP Timothy Myeni once confessed in Parliament that he possessed a dual citizenship, with the other being that of South Africa. He was Lubulini MP at the time. Then LaMgabhi MP Ntuthuko Dlamini demanded answers on his alleged dual citizenship, in 2016. Although Dlamini did not specifically name Myeni, he referred the House to an article that appeared in one of the weekend publications. In that article, a member of the House had confessed to having a double citizenship. That MP was Myeni. The former LaMgabhi legislator cited Section 50 of the Constitution, saying that a person could not have two citizenships.

Section 50 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Eswatini, of 2005 depicts that if a citizen of Eswatini, who has attained the age of majority, or being a woman is or is about to be married, is or is about to become a citizen of another country and for that reason desires to renounce his or her citizenship of Eswatini, that citizen may do so by lodging with the Board a declaration of renunciation of that citizenship and, upon lodgement of the declaration or, if not then a citizen of that other country, upon becoming that citizen, he or she shall cease to be a citizen of Eswatini.

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