SWAZILAND-POLITICS: Trade Unions Hold Political Magic Wand

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Gumisai Mutume

MANZINI, Feb 16 1996 (IPS) - In a tiny, cramped office in this sleepy commercial town, Dominic Mngomazulu plans for the day when the wave of unrest sweeping his country will lead to democratic reforms and to propel his political party to power.

His People’s United Democractic Movement (PUDEMO), which has operated as an underground movement all its life, expects the Swazi monarchy to give in to the demands of the people and allow political parties, after which PUDEMO will contest elections and eventually take over.

Confined to its office in Manzini, PUDEMO has not been able to gauge its support base, but claims it has about 20,000 registered members.

The opposition parties that have mushroomed in this Southern African kingdom have been piggy-backing on its active trade unions.

“Given that political parties were banned, PUDEMO has had to find political space elsewhere to articulate its cause. Trade unions and youth movements are legal so we have placed our people within these formations,” explains Mngomazulu, the party’s secretary general.

To illustrate his point, he says the demands put forward to government by the country’s labour movement centre on allowing freedom of association and political activity.

Since independence from Britain in 1968, the monarchy has held sway in this southern African nation of just under one million people. In 1973, King Sobhuza II froze the Westminster-style constitution, barring all political activity and giving himself total power.

This action is a major bone of contention for the 85,000-strong Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU) — the larger of two umbrella labour organisations here. For eight days last month the SFTU, led by former pulp-mill worker Jan Sithole, held the monarchy to ransom in a nationwide strike which brought all economic activity to a halt.

The strike had started off with general labour demands but eventually turned political.

With three million dollars a day lost in a country whose gross domestic product is one billion dollars, King Mswati III, who holds executive and legislative powers, ordered a return to work , promising that workers’ demands would be heard.

Negotiations are currently taking place but the STFU plans another mass stayaway on Feb. 19 to put pressure on Mswati to heed its clamour for change.

“The struggle has only begun,” notes SFTU national co- ordinator Tom Dhlamini. “We will not stop until the monarchy upholds a democratic system.”

While trade union leaders have been maintaining a high profile, thanks in part to the fact that their organisations are legally recognised, Swaziland’s opposition political leaders have largely remained in their shadow.

For University of Swaziland academic Linda Maepa, “the bottom line is that organisations like PUDEMO do not have their act together. They do not have credibility and are catching on to the bandwagon. It’s the trade unions that seem to have a clearer agenda.”

Maepa says even though a ban on politics has been in place it was not rigidly enforced and on numerous occasions PUDEMO has been allowed to conduct rallies and demonstrations.

But Mngomazulu counters that he has often been arrested.

In 1985, two years after PUDEMO’s formation, eight of its members were put on trial for belonging to a banned organisation. They skipped bail and fled the country. Mngomazulu, a lawyer by profession, remained behind.

“Alongside other democratic formations we seek to intensify the struggle from within the country,” he says. “And, if by the 19th, government has not given in, the people will engage in another stay-away and we will also engage the support of the international community, including our neighbour South Africa.”

He says that, at that stage, diplomatic isolation of Swaziland accompanied by economic sanctions would be in order. Sanctions would force a rethink on the part of a government that claims Swazis are happy to live under a monarchy.

South Africa is estimated to possess almost 90 percent of the investments and technical expertise in the small mountainous country and there have been rumblings across the border from the ruling African National Congress, the Confederation of South African Trade Unions and the Communist Party. However, they have stopped short of supporting any initiatives aimed at overthrowing the monarchy.

All along, the democratic movement here has been overshadowed by the struggle in South Africa against apartheid, which monopolised world attention over the last few decades.

Changes there — the end of official racial discrimination, the advent of majority rule and a burgeoning human rights’ culture — have served as an inspiration for many Swazis, but the monarchy appears to be in no hurry to release its stranglehold on power.

“Part of the problem here has been that even the word ‘politics’ itself is treated like a four-letter word,” says Maepa, a lecturer in journalism. “This has hindered progress in all spheres of life because whatever one undertakes can be misconstrued as being political.”