By: Acting Editor-in-Chief
The ongoing state brutality, arbitrary arrests and shooting sprees targeted at everyone opposed to King Mswati’s nepotistic and repressive reign, must be condemned in strongest terms. For truth’s sake, the escalating political unrest in eSwatini (Swaziland) is a culmination of the monarchy’s blatant failure to address the Covid-19 exacerbated youth unemployment estimated at 50%, institutionalized government corruption including the skyrocketing cost of living.
For those who may not be fully aware of the going ons in Africa’s last absolute monarchy, Swazi people are on the streets demanding political reforms which among other things include, limiting of the King’s power to directly control government, and giving people power to directly elect their preferred Prime Minister.
The current system of government constitutionally recognizes the king (Ngwenyama) as head of state who appoints the PM from the legislature and also appoints a minority of legislators to both chambers of Libandla (parliament), with help from an advisory council. This is a system that has succeeded in banning political parties and muzzling the media by continuously detaining and torturing journalists.
Like any other state pursued agitators of democracy in eSwatini, we strongly support the call for democratic reforms in the impoverished southern African country. Democracy is urgently needed to give Swazi people chance to elect a government that responds to their needs. The current leadership cannot solve the ongoing problems in the country because it is part of what has gone wrong. You can’t solve a problem when the very problem is your own face.
Currently, the monarchy is everything that has gone wrong in the country. The King is defiant to pro-democracy demands and his only response is unleashing security forces to shot, teargas and brutalize protesters in streets. So far an estimate of 100 people have been killed and several hundreds injured including yesterday’s shooting spree which left 30 nurses severely injured.
As we call on the international community to intervene in this matter for public good, we urge King Mswati to take a leaf from the British crown which has sustained its existence for 1, 200 years now, through power sharing, adaptability and constitutionalism.
We say NO to the self-obsessed monarch who clearly has no intentions of reforming himself, nor his increasingly out-of-touch family, away from the throne.
