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DEPUTY Prime Minister (DPM) Themba Masuku has been very busy in the past week or so, addressing various media platforms on very important national matters. Notably, we seldom hear his principal address us on these matters unless he is doing so in Parliament. Perhaps there was a resolution somewhere that since the premier is still a novice in politics, his deputy is better placed to address these contentious issues while he globetrots and takes care of other matters; Hospital Hill knows better.
My observation and concern as a citizen is that uMhlanti is not doing the country much service each time he says something to address these very important issues. While one would expect him, akin to red wine, to have matured politically, given his illustrious career in politics, he just keeps disappointing. There are no prizes for guessing who was at the helm at Hospital Hill when the country burned in 2021. He certainly is not the man we need at the moment. But such is the hallmark of this Tinkhundla System. Men and women of distinction, well educated, exposed and gifted with intelligence just turn to be stooges and lose their spark when called upon to serve this system.
I cringed a couple of days ago when I was listening to the DPM in a wide-ranging interview with a local radio journalist who managed him very well. As part of his questions during the interview, he asked the DPM why it would appear that government was dodging the anticipated national dialogue, touted as the ultimate panacea to the kingdom’s political woes. Expectedly, he refuted that and went with the tired justification of violence on the ground, which government has chosen to lurch on as its perfect excuse. If one didn’t know better and was living outside the country, I’d probably be thinking people are dodging bullets and explosives like in some wartorn countries.
Admittedly
Admittedly, the country is no longer what it used to be before. Outside the June 29 2021 unrest, what we have witnessed, almost two years later, was the killing of almost a dozen police officers and soldiers, arson attacks on homes of key political figures on either side of the political divide and the arrest of suspects and most recently, the assassination of Human Rights Lawyer Thulani Maseko. I am by no means trivialising the situation. However, can we really say these incidents are a hindrance for this all-important dialogue to take place? We have seen negotiations take place in many parts of the world in far worse security situations. Like an ape, this government is just hiding behind a leaf and the international community can see right through this.
The DPM, in his interview, insisted that he too could not wait for the dialogue to take place. His keen interest in the process, he said, was to get a platform to express his deep concerns about the state of the road
in his home area. Really now! So is this the kind of dialogue we should be expecting, facilitated by this government? Developmental issues on the agenda! Please do not mock emaSwati like this. We cannot have the circus we had in 2003 when we put together this Constitution that has kept us in the 1973 shackles. I remember vividly how embarrassing it was when Prince David, the erstwhile Chairman of the Constitutional Draft Committee, had a horrid time at Sibaya trying to guide speakers on the nature of submissions that were needed for the process. People just went on and on talking about such issues as the bad state of roads, expensive fertilisers and all manner of issues which had nothing to do with the Constitution. The committee was exposed that it had not done its homework properly as far as civic education was concerned. If the dialogue does eventually take place, we cannot have a repeat of that smokescreen that eventually legitimised a Constitution that robs people of contemporary political liberties, which should allow them to be true citizens and determine the socio-political trajectory of the country.
So, the DPM, and the government he speaks for, must be very clear that the national dialogue that is being sought is not the one he is talking about. He has access to the minister of Public Works and Transport and makes policy himself. He should not make a mockery of this. The dialogue we are anticipating here is one that speaks directly to the power dynamics. It is one that should result in fundamental political concessions that should bring power back to the people. A dialogue that will result in a dispensation where there are no untouchables; where meritocracy reigns supreme and where casting a vote in the ballot box means choosing a government with a specific political agenda in the context of a marketplace of ideas.