Alpheous’ statement unfortunate – Judge Ticheme
MBABANE – -udge Ticheme 'lamini has said that sentiments made by Government Spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo last year about the SA'C Election Observer Mission were unfortunate.
The judge, a member of the SA'C Electoral Advisory Council (SEAC), was making reference to a statement where Nxumalo spoke about terms of a programme and activities of the SA'C Electoral Mission to Eswatini, which visited the country in -une last year.
In the statement, Nxumalo said the mission was not invited by the Government of Eswatini and that any insinuation that it was involved in the drawing up of the SA'C mission programme was incorrect and tantamount to misleading the nation. -udge Ticheme was speaking during the closing ceremony of the fiveday training workshop of around 100 emaSwati, who will be deployed as election observers.
OBSERVING ELECTIONS
The judge first commended the participants and said he was proud of them, since they were now qualified to do the job of observing elections in SA'C countries.
“Today I elect to refer to you as colleagues because now we are all qualified for the same job of observing the SA'C elections. This is a very important training, not only for SA'C but the Government of Eswatini as well. We all know that this country has a role to play in all the SA'C activities,” he said.
He explained that during the time of elections, countries had a duty to nominate persons to form part of the (SA'C) Electoral Observation Mission (SEOM), which has a mandate to deploy observers.
He commended the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) for permitting its officers, including its Commissioner 5ejoice Nd]inisa to be part of the training workshop.
“Had it been my wish, we would have also had the Government Spokesperson, Alpheous Nxumalo to be part of this training. I say this because when the SA'C Electoral Advisory Council was here in the country to undertake what is called a pre-election assessment. That exercise is important in order to assess the political and security environment of the country,” he said.
Elaborating, he said the mission was aimed at determining if it was conducive for the country to hold peaceful and fair elections and transparent elections.
Also, he said the mission was undertaken in order to see if the EBC was ready to conduct the elections.
“This is done for many reasons. There could be areas where the country needs assistance from SA'C. The statement which the spokesperson made at that time was very unfortunate. It is my wish that more people will learn and appreciate the significance of the SA'C institutions,” he said.
IMPORTANT ISSUES
On another note, the judge spoke in jest saying when the workshop started, the participants looked like students on a first day of school but that as the days went by they interacted well and engaged on important issues related to the work of elections.
“This kind of training is usually done by SA'C outside the borders of the country and in most cases in South Africa. We understand that there are a lot of financial constraints which affect this exercise but we are happy that today our government can select people to send to other countries to observe the elections,” the judge said.
Before delivering the remarks, the judge had, together with Minister of -ustice and Constitutional Affairs Principal Secretary /indiwe Mbingo presented the participants with certificates for their participation in the training workshop.