Hosea dialogue to decide elections fate – indvuna
NHLANGANO – Hosea Richard Vilane says the riots and disruptions at his constituency were sometimes an influence from outside.
Yenkhundla
In an interview with this publication, Vilane explained the reason he was organising a dialogue for Hosea Constituency. He said the proposed community dialogue for Hosea constituency was meant to come up with one word; either to participate in the upcoming general elections or not.
Vilane stated that the reason he was organising the dialogue was to give all residents under Hosea Inkhundla a platform to voice out their views on whether they wanted the national elections or not. He stated that the recently-experienced disruptions of the civic voter education exercise at the constituency were caused by a few individuals. As such, he said it could not be concluded that the Hosea folk were all against the elections.
Disruptions
Indvuna
The civic voter education exercise disruptions were experienced at KaLiba and Hhohho Emuva in the past weeks. Vilane stated that during the proposed dialogue, all groups would be afforded a chance to speak then a decision would be taken from there.
The indvuna said he did not want a situation whereby the majority was controlled by a minority in terms of decisions that would affect the entire future of the constituency.
Vilane stated that sometimes the influence for the disruptions and riots at Hosea were from outside the constituency, brought about by different political parties. He said sometimes the parties influenced their minority members in the constituency to cause the disruptions.
Vilane said it was worth noting that most residents under Hosea were not affiliated to any political party. He stated that Hosea comprised of a population of about 27 000 people and among those, at least less than 2 000 were affiliated to political parties. He said, therefore, the decision on whether to participate in the elections or not should be a collective one.
Boycotting
Vilane said personally, he was not for the idea of boycotting elections because it might end up affecting the constituents in many ways. He said for him, he would advise people to register to vote in order to obtain a voters card. He said by so doing, one would be fully involved in the governance of the country, unlike one who had not registered at all.
He said in order to influence the changes in the governance of the country, one needed to be part of it and having a voter card was an indication that one was part of the decision-making processes of the country.
Vilane said during the proposed dialogue, all groups should be given an opportunity to speak. He said these groups included churches, royal kraal representatives, co-operatives, and the members of the different political parties who were originally from Hosea. He noted that co-operatives were also key in these engagements because they had benefitted from the Tinkhundla Government as they had been given a number of working tools like tractors, among other things, for their own businesses.
Vilane added that the disruptions at Hosea Constituency were regrettable as they even went into the extent of affecting schoolchildren. He said in the past two years, pupils were influenced to boycott classes and made to demand the release of the incarcerated Member of Parliament, (MP) Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza.
He said such a call was totally not for the children to make because the head teachers they were boycotting for in their various schools had absolutely nothing to do with Mabuza’s case. He said the only thing that pupils could be expected to protest for would be when they were not learning, either because there were no teachers or something else related to school. He said at the time the pupils from Hosea schools were busy protesting, other schools around the country were learning.
He said the pupils from Hosea and other schools had to sit a similar examination. He said unfortunately, learners from Hosea ended up failing, and as such the protesting and boycotting did not help anyone.