Chief Mgwagwa expected
MBABANE – As tradition would have it, Chief Mgwagwa Gamedze is expected to act as the country’s prime minister.
He will hold fort upon the expiration of the term of office for the incumbent Prime Minister (PM) , Cleopas Sipho Dlamini.
Gamedze is the current Chief Officer at the King’s Office. Arguably, he will be the first acting prime minister with a Cabinet experience.
The chief officer served in three government portfolios during his tenure as a minister – Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
He served two consecutive terms as a minister. It has been tradition that the acting prime minister is provided with two escort vehicles and bodyguards from the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS).
POWERS
The acting premier enjoys powers that the incumbent PM exercises at Cabinet. He works with principal secretaries and liaises with the governor of the Central Bank of Eswatini in sensitive matters that touch on the country’s public finance.
Sizakele Dlamini, the Principal
Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, becomes a central figure in the team working with the acting PM.
Meanwhile, a classical example of an acting PM who faced pockets of political challenges during his tenure of office is Bheki Dlamini.
He served as acting PM from September 18, 2008 to October 23, 2008.
On October 14, 2008, he made it clear during a press conference that there was no struggle for democracy in Eswatini.
Dlamini insisted that the so-called struggle for democracy and economic justice in the Kingdom did not exist.
The then interim premier made those remarks at the Cabinet in reaction to a planned social justice conference that was scheduled for October 16, 2008.
He said: “The Swaziland (Eswatini) Government is not aware of any government in the world that would sit and fold its arms, and allow strategies that would negatively affect the peace and security of the country concerned, to be developed within its own borders.”
He added: “The Swaziland (Eswatini) Government reiterates her stated position as articulated in the statement of October 13, 2008, on this issue - the holding of the meeting is prohibited and remains banned.”
The then acting PM said it was quite apparent that Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), together with local labour federations and other formations wanted to cause anarchy in the country.
ATTEMPT
He became the acting PM shortly after an attempt to bomb the Lozitha Bridge. During the explosion, Musa ‘MJ’ Dlamini and Jack Govender died while Amos Mbedzi was arrested.
Mbedzi died on June 7, 2022 in Polokwane, South Africa, after he had been transferred from Matsapha Maximum Prison to a certain Correctional facility in that country.
The preference of chief officers of the King’s Office to act as PM can be traced from the 1990s when the King appointed Andreas Fakudze.
Fakudze, who died in 2001, served as the acting PM from October 25, 1993 to November 4, 1993.
In 1993, His Majesty the King appointed him as a temporary prime min