‘STOP UNDEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS’

MBABANE – ‘Stop the local government elections, they are undemocratic’!

The Mbabane City Ratepayers and Developers Association has filed an urgent application in the High Court where it is among other things seeking an order declaring the ongoing local government elections as unlawful.
The association is further seeking an order that the local government elections be stopped and held in abeyance until the determination of the application.
The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Phiwayinkhosi Mabuza, has been cited as the first respondent in the matter.

Other respondents are the Municipal Council of Mbabane, Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) and the Attorney General.
The ratepayers also want the court to declare unlawful, undemocratic and invalid the local government elections in so far as aspiring councillors nominate themselves to serve in the municipalities.
The ratepayers argued that the way in which the local government elections were currently conducted was inconsistent with the Constitution of Swaziland.

In his founding affidavit, Solomon Nxumalo, who is among the aggrieved ratepayers, mentioned that the application sought to force the respondents to comply with the Constitution of the Kingdom of Swaziland in so far as it related to conducting of municipal elections in Swaziland.
He contended that the elections ought to be conducted in terms of the EBC Act of 2013.

Nxumalo told the court that the local government elections were held under the Urban Government Act and that this was inconsistent with the provisions of the EBC Act as well as the Elections Act of 2013. “I have been advised and verily believe that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and any law inconsistent with it shall, to the extent of its consistency, be void,” Nxumalo argued.

He also mentioned that the provisions of the Urban Government Act were inconsistent with the Constitution in so far as the conduct of the elections was concerned and should be declared invalid.
“The local government, under the Urban Government Act, is undemocratic and stands at odds with section 79 as read together with Section 78(4) of the Constitution,” he argued.

Nxumalo further claimed that Regulation 17 of the Urban Government Elections Regulations of 1969 was at odds with the Constitution and the Elections Act of 2013.

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