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PPAS’ ‘FACTORY TO FACTORY’ MARCH TOMORROW

11/12/2019 00:12:00 BY KWANELE SIBIYA AND SIBUSISO ZWANE

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MANZINI - Operations in the industrial hub of the country, textile factories to be specific, are likely to be disturbed tomorrow.

This is because the Political Party Assembly (PPA) will stage a march, which is dubbed ‘factory to factory outreach’ in Matsapha tomorrow.
The PPA leadership revealed this during a press conference which was held at The George Hotel yesterday.

Jan Sithole, who is the President of the Swaziland Democratic Party (SWADEPA), which is a member of the PPA, said the march was part of their broad mandate which they got from the people of Eswatini coming from different economic sectors.

He said as PPA, they had been mandated by emaSwati from different sectors of the economy to lead them in seeking political reforms in the country. In fact, he said the core mandate was to democratise Eswatini and have multi-party democracy as opposed to the current system of governance, Tinkhundla.
The SWADEPA president said the march would be aimed at reaching out to the people based in Matsapha to make them aware of the move to change Eswatini to a country where the ordinary citizens would have power to determine their destiny.

Confusion

He said irrespective of the fact that a week ago, there was confusion regarding their march, which was supposed to take place last Friday, tomorrow’s march would go ahead as planned.

He said this was because following last week’s confusion; they had a number of dialogues with relevant stakeholders, including Matsapha Town Council and reached an understanding.

On that note, Sithole assured their members together with interested organisations and individuals that they had done all that was expected from them by the law.
Therefore, he said nobody should be scared because they would be protected by the law. He said the march would start next to Matsapha Town Council towards Matsapha Police Station (Sigodvweni), pass through the factories, make a U-turn near Giant Factory and move back to where they convened.

Apart from the factory to factory outreach, the SWADEPA president said other activities that they would lead, as they seek political reforms in the country, would include city to city, town to town and chiefdom to chiefdom demonstrations.

On another note, other leaders of the PPA assured the public and their members that there would be order during their activity.

Messages

Furthermore, they said during the march, they would be relaying messages of what they wanted and needed to be done.
They highlighted that one major goal they sought to achieve, was to have an audience with the King about the political reform they were seeking and also to amend the Constitution.

They said they wanted to meet the King because they had seen his skills of resolving issues through dialogue as he did so in countries like Senegal and Mozambique, while he was Chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Troika.
Their argument was that it was political parties which fought for the country’s independence, which it eventually attained in 1968.
Thereafter, they claimed that King Sobhuza II, who was the reigning King at that time, allegedly said the Tinkhundla system of governance would be used as an experiment and would not last forever.

Argument

On that note, they said they felt it was time for political parties to replace the Tinkhundla system of governance. Their argument was that public funds were no longer in the hands of Tinkhundla.

It is worth noting that the PPA, including of SWADEPA, People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), Ngwane National Liberatory Congress (NNLC) and Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS), have met with trade unions organised under the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) and civil society organisations about seeking political reforms in the country.

Meanwhile, Matsapha Town Council Chief Executive Officer Lucky Sukati could not be reached for comment as his mobile phone rang unanswered for the better part of yesterday afternoon. However, this publication has reliably gathered that the council met with the PPA leadership over the matter on Monday afternoon.

On the other hand, by the time of compiling this report, Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said they had not received information about the proposed march.
This is not the first time the PPA host a march, as they did so last month in Mbabane, where they wanted to deliver a petition at the South African High Commission.
However, the march was quashed by the police because the political parties did not have a permission from the local authority to march along the city’s streets.