Times Of Swaziland: HOW TO INSULT VOTERS

HOW TO INSULT VOTERS
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By Martin Dlamini on 14/09/2018 03:13:00


IN a week’s time, the people of Eswatini would have decided on their
candidates to elect to Parliament and the country’s fate would have been
sealed.
The candidates have been busy with campaigns, forging alliances and luring
voters with promises of a better tomorrow. A few have hit the nail on the head
with well researched ideas on the legislation we need for the country to work
better, attract investment, diversify and grow the economy, root out corruption
and improve efficiencies in public service delivery.
Others have just decided to have fun by throwing cash around and gambling with
the country’s future - literally. Some may argue that at least they are not
slitting children’s throats and dismembering their bodies for muti votes.
However, they are killing the country. Yes, these strategies are not the worst
in the history of elections all over the world. We’ve heard of candidates in
other countries promise to provide every poor household with a TV set. Others
promised to waive off all educational loans and would provide laptops for
students, as well as mobile phones with 3G and 4G connections that have
additional 10 GB download options per month to boot.
Some aspiring politicians have promised voters a waiver for farmers who have
taken loans from nationalised and cooperative banks. One political party in
India promised eight grammes of gold to eligible women living below the poverty
line, for marriage! Recently, in the run down to the Zimbabwe election,
opposition MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa promised to rename the country,
saying he believed its name was cursed and is responsible for the nation’s
poor showing in international sporting events. But really?
Back home, a legal mind was asked how different this gambling was from people
who donated blankets and gave food parcels to the electorate as a campaigning
strategy.
He said it was more or less the same principle but differed in that this form of
gambling violated the Gaming Act, the Elections Expenses Act, 2013 and the
Elections Act, 2013. He said the two latter laws were recently quoted by the
courts as they pointed out the issue of achieving undue influence.
These gambling candidates have also done their research to find that the
majority of Eswatini voters are poor, hungry, unemployed and cannot relate to
policies and legislation which don’t put food on the table. Sadly, the
campaign strategy adopted by the nominees is to make fun of all these desperate
people.
The Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC), which has been woeful in
addressing election transgressions, has referred the matter to its legal team
but I expect nothing to come of it. We simply have to contend with the fact that
our Parliament will be composed of legislators with the fattest wallets –
people of no integrity. Nobody can fault us for trying to drum sense into the
minds of the voters and the candidates, as it seems not everybody got the
message.
And while we fool around, the South African Government is seeking approval from
its Parliament to change the SACU revenue sharing formula to increase the share
because of its massive contribution to the pool when compared to the other
member countries, including Eswatini. Remember SACU? This is where we get above
60 per cent of revenue for our national budget.
Chances are, if the SA Government has its way, this source of funding will
plummet to below 40 per cent. This can only mean one thing; we will be left
worse off.
This comes as bit of a surprise because at the recent SACU Summit in Botswana,
Finance ministers resolved to meet in SA this month to finalise logistics of how
the SACU revenue pool could be removed from the SA Treasury and placed
independently at the SA Reserve Bank for purposes of proper auditing and
transparent distribution of the pool. So what has changed? The China-Africa
Summit perhaps?
The bigger question, though, becomes what strategy will our gambling MPs put on
the table to save this broke country that is about to lose a significant chunk
of its national budget resource?
Their actions suggest they will gamble this country away through the lottery to
the highest bidding superpowers of the world – just so we can eat to see
another day. So much for 50 years of independence.