IRIN Focus on political reform

Swaziland will edge closer to constitutional rule next month when a government body completes work on a report that pro-democracy groups hope will lead to a return to plural politics. However, the country’s banned opposition has poured scorn on the work of the constitutional review commission and dismissed its activities as “political window dressing”. The constitutional review commission said it would submit a report on public submissions on political reform to King Mswati III in September - a month before the deadline he set early this year. King Mswati ordered the commission, headed by Prince Mangaliso, to give him the report before he went into seclusion at the end of October ahead of the Incwala, an annual spiritual pageant on which the monarchy’s traditional authority lies. Opposition unimpressed However, the banned People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) said it was “unimpressed” by the commission’s announcement – and the entire political reform exercise. “It does not mean anything,” PUDEMO president Mario Masuku told IRIN. “The whole exercise is a farce. To begin with, the composition of the commission is suspect, because it is led by a member of the royal house.” “Moreover, the media was banned from reporting on submissions to the commission, and group submissions were not allowed,” he added. “Nothing progressive can be expected from the commission.” Masuku said pro-democracy groups doubted the commission’s sincerity in collecting public submissions. “We know what the commission will recommend. It will say that the majority of Swazis do not want political reform, and that will be the end of it,” he said. Swaziland has been ruled by royal decree since 1973, when the former king, Sobhuza II, repealed the Westminster-style constitution inherited at independence from Britain in 1968. The royal decree vested overall control of the executive, judiciary and legislature in the king and banned party politics. King Mswati III appointed the constitutional review commission in 1996 in response to growing calls for political reform. The commission was scheduled to complete its work in 1998, but twice asked for more time, fuelling speculation that it was deliberately dragging its feet. International campaign Impatient pro-democracy advocates have in recent years waged an international campaign for the isolation of Swaziland. They have found a reliable ally in South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC), whose provincial offices in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal provinces house branches of the pro-democracy Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN). The government of King Mswati III recently accused South Africa of interfering in Swaziland’s internal affairs by supporting its banned opposition. However, the government of President Thabo Mbeki has distanced itself from the ruling party’s support for SSN. At the beginning of August, police in Namibia broke up a demonstration planned by Swaziland’s opposition and its South African backers at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) conference in Windhoek. Meanwhile, Western donors are also applying pressure on the government of King Mswati III to scrap laws they consider repressive or restrictive. In June, for example, the United States threatened to expel Swaziland from the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP, a key trade pact for developing countries), over industrial relation concerns. The US threat coincided with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) annual conference, which decried laws it said restricted trade union activity. The conference singled out the Public order Act, a draconian law inherited from Britain, which bans group activities unless they are organised with permission from the police. It also criticised the Administration Order, which compels citizens to provide free labour for the king and other traditional leaders. The government has since amended the Industrial Relations Act to put it in line with international conventions. Political analysts, however, say the monarchy is unlikely to be as responsive to political concerns. “They will keep on dragging their feet, and whatever political reforms are made will not be effected soon. The political landscape will remain the same for a long time to come,” a university lecturer told IRIN.