‘Gawuzela’ misguided, Mlungisi backward – Alpheous
‘‘ He claims to have stopped a certain Bill which was meant to benefit the Head of State if it were to be passed into law. Really! How could he have achieved that if Parliament was indeed ‘somebody’s chambers?’
MBABANE –Government is not taking kindly to statements made by two emaSwati about the King, elections and Parliament.
As a result, Alpheous Nxumalo, the Government Spokesperson, said Mduduzi ‘Gawuzela’ Simelane was in a huge cage of political contradictions and dilemmas.
He said he was all over the place when discussing issues of national importance (uyanhlanhlatsa).
Simelane is the President of the Swaziland Liberation Movement (SWALIMO) and former Siphofaneni MP. He is presently in exile.
The SWALIMO president was able to evade arrest for incidences related to the civil unrest that occurred in 2021.
MERE CHAMBERS
The government press secretary said Simelane was offside when he alleged in an interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) that Parliament was but mere chambers for the Head of the State.
He said government followed the SABC1 Siswati channel interview that was conducted on the Wednesday of May 24, 2023, whereby Simelane and Mlungisi Makhanya, the President of the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) featured.
He said the interviewing SABC journalist, as usual, never gave government the right and opportunity to respond to some of the unfounded and myopic allegations against Parliament’s composition and functions and Eswatini’s national general elections.
He said government was looking forward to an interview with SABC tomorrow to react to the allegations.
Nxumalo said, based on the content of interview, government immediately concluded that both gentlemen were lost in their own world of political fantasy and fanaticism.
SQUARELY REFUTED
He squarely refuted the assertion that the upcoming national general elections belonged to the Head of State.
“The man is in a huge cage of his political contradictions and dilemmas,” he said.
He then explained why he thought the SWALIMO president was all over the place: “On one hand, he urges his dysfunctional and imploding political party SWALIMO to participate in the elections because it gives them an opportunity to hijack Parliament and turn it into a revolutionary forum. How will he do that if the chambers belong to another entity as he put it?”
“He claims to have stopped a certain Bill which was meant to benefit the Head of State if it were to be passed into law. Really! How could he have achieved that if Parliament was indeed ‘somebody’s chambers’?”
The government press secretary said if truth were to be told as it had been witnessed on so many occasions in the past and present, the Parliament of the Kingdom of Eswatini ‘is the people’s Parliament’.
He explained that the people directly voted for their representatives without any hindrance or outside influence. Nxumalo mentioned that Simelane was ‘witness number one’ of this experience up until he allegedly offended the law.
He said both himself and his wife Nomalungelo Simelane, popularly known as LaZwide, were directly elected by the people to Parliament. “Therefore, to assert otherwise, remains a political fallacy,” Nxumalo said.
Nxumalo said national elections in Eswatini and the establishment of Parliament (House of Assembly/Senate) were a constitutional requirement and imposition of the national Constitution.
OFFENDED THE LAW
“Magawugawu himself, before he offended the law and became a fugitive, he was duly elected by the owners of the chambers of Parliament (which is not the King’s chambers as Magawugawu alleges) but of all bona fide emaSwati who willingly and dutifully exercise their rights to chart their future by voting for their representatives to Parliament,” the government press secretary said.
He said it was both a political fantasy and fanaticism to propagate a deceptive political agenda that emaSwati should elect political conduits to act and serve in Parliament as agents and