OBSERVING THE SWAZILAND ELECTION

Swazi Media Commentary

16 September

Comment

OBSERVING THE SWAZILAND ELECTION

News that 100 observers are heading to Swaziland for this Friday’s election raises the question what are they expecting to see?

They will hardly have enough time to unpack their suitcases before the election is over and it’s time to go home.

If last month’s primary elections are anything to go by there will be many problems with the election.

At one point the primary election was postponed even though polling stations had already opened. The chaos was over missing ballot papers, incomplete voting forms and ballots with the wrong candidates’ names.

Violence broke out at polling stations as polls were closed before everyone had the chance to vote.

Many losing candidates ran to the High Court to have the vote overturned.

On top of this there were accusations that some election boxes were tampered with.

Others said the election was not secret.

On top of this there were accusations that candidates tried to bribe voters and claims of other inappropriate and illegal behaviour by candidates.

Apart from specific incidents on polling day there is also the ongoing dissatisfaction with the members of Swaziland’s Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC). The High Court has been asked to rule on whether the members were selected in accordance with the Swazi Constitution.

The constitution states that the chair should be a senior judge, but in fact Chief Gija Dlamini, the EBC chair has no legal background and is variously described as an ‘electrician’ or an ‘electrical engineer’.

The European Union (EU) has already announced it will not send observers to the election because it hasn’t been given enough time to do the job properly. There is also some concern among EU representatives that the Swazi poll is meaningless because political parties are banned and the parliament that is elected has no real powers. Swaziland’s present Prime Minister Themba Dlamini was selected by King Mswati III even though Dlamini had not been elected to Parliament.

After the last Swaziland election in 2003, the Commonwealth Expert Team which did observer the election reported ‘we do not regard the credibility of these National elections as an issue: no elections can be credible when they are for a Parliament which does not have power and when political parties are banned’.

Nothing has substantially changed since 2003 and there is no reason to believe that this week’s election will be any more meaningful. Which of the 100 observers will have the courage to say so?

See also

ELECTIONS

SWAZILAND ELECTIONS 2008 BLOGSITE

ELECTIONS AND BOUNDARIES COMMISSION

Link http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2008/09/observing-swaziland-election.html

SIX OBSERVER GROUPS AT POLL

Times Sunday

14 September 2008

Six observer organisations for our elections

By MAKHOSI MAGONGO

MBABANE—About six international organisations have already indicated that they will be sending official observer missions for the Secondary elections on Friday.

Some of the members of these organisations have already arrived in the country in preparation for the elections. They will be monitoring the final stages of the elections.

Deputy Chairman of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) Mzwandile Fakudze confirmed that six organisations have assured the EBC of their presence, adding that his organisation has already started welcoming some of the observers’ teams’ members.

He said organisations that have confirmed are the Pan African Parliament, the Southern African Development Community, the Electoral Commission Forum (which comprises of Election Commissions from SADC countries), The Commonwealth and the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA).

Already, 30 members of the SADC observer mission are in the country getting ready for Friday’s Secondary Elections.

Henriques Banze leads the SADC delegation. Members of the mission are being deployed to various constituencies and are expected to interact with other local and international officials who are also participating in the elections process.

The SADC team was dispatched on the mandate of incoming Chairperson of the SADC organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation Armando Guebuza, who is also President of Mozambique.

While regional organisations have managed to schedule the Swaziland Parliamentary elections in their election observer roasters, organisations such as the European Union will not send an external team.

Initially, Chief Gija insisted that the EU had confirmed that it would send an Observer Mission, the local representatives of the EU stated the opposite.

In a statement issued in July, the EU said: "The deployment of EU election observers is a comprehensive process which requires significant planning well in advance of the election, since the EU has adopted the policy to only have long term observation missions. The EU can only consider the deployment of observation missions to those elections for which the authorities of the country concerned have issued a formal invitation sufficiently ahead of election day." It further states that given that their local representatives did not receive such an invitation on time, they could not include the Swaziland elections in their roster.

Fakudze acknowledged the EU’s statement this week, adding that only EU observers based in Swaziland would monitor the election.

Elections monitoring is the observation of an election by one or more independent parties, typically from another country or a non-governmental organisation (NGO), primarily to ensure the fairness of the election process.

There are national and international election observers. Monitors do not directly prevent electoral fraud, but rather record and report such instances. The legitimacy of an election can be affected by the criticism of monitors, provided that they are themselves seen as unbiased. A notable individual is often appointed honorary leader of a monitoring organisation in an effort to enhance its own legitimacy.

Link http://www.times.co.sz/News/1382.html

EU SNUBS SWAZILAND ELECTION

Times of Swaziland
2 July 2008

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EU PRAISES VOTER TURNOUT

Swazi Observer
2 July 2008

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