Africa-Press – Eswatini. Last week, Emaswati headed to the polls in arguably the country’s most important national elections in over five decades.
Yesterday, the candidates that went through the primary elections officially began campaigning – even though some were already handing out freebies and goodies.
These next few weeks, these efforts are definitely going to ramp up. Promises will be made (construction of roads, schools, blah, blah blah) – many of them empty.
I really do hope we will see some new faces, and that Emaswati will not be fooled by handouts. I’m on record saying good riddance to the 11th Parliament bunch because the truth remains; it was under their watch that this nation experienced its worst political unrest.
It is them who were tasked with playing an oversight role on behalf of the people and also ensuring improvement to service delivery, and the honest truth is that they failed miserably.
Perhaps the fact that about 20 of legislators from the previous parliament have bit the dust is a good omen, emphasis on the perhaps though.
What is certain, however, is that it is a message from the people – Emaswati want things to be done differently. They want people who will be held accountable just as they also hold the executive accountable, because an efficient government is not possible without responsive and accountable legislators who are capable and willing to address the needs of the populace.
They want people who will listen to them and then work hard on their needs.
Personally, as part of the minority of young people who have registered to vote, I dutifully went to my polling station early in the morning and casted my vote and will do so again on September 29.
As was the case in the 2018 elections, it was quite a tough choice to make on who to vote for, but eventually made the decision.
To be frank, that decision was not made based on my confidence in the capabilities of the candidate I voted for, rather on the vague hope that they might not be as bad as the previous one.
Because of my job, I stayed up for the better part of the night at a different polling stations of course, and couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling that my vote will not make a difference to how my constituency and country will be governed for the next five years.
As the results were released, I was even more disappointed even though I kind of expected it – a handful of young people managed to progress past the primary elections.
A staunch conservative who’s a regular reader of this column wrote to me the other week, arguing that the youth have no right to complain because they do not vote and have themselves to blame for the incompetent and corrupt government they are cursed with.
Well, the sad truth is that this is true to a certain extent, but not fully.
Many young people who do not vote do so because they do not feel their votes will change anything in the country – or at least anything important to them.
This view is very troubling because it reflects the youth’s rising dissatisfaction and worse disaffection with the system.
They believe the system is rigged in favour of the ‘moneyed’, and therefore, Parliament’s decision-making favours economic prosperity of powerful people who control the economy.
While I relate to this, I still strongly believe it’s a terrible mistake for young people (who form 70 per cent of the population) to not participate in elections and politics in general, because then they miss the point to what active citizenship is.
I vote for the same reason I still spend hours each week writing this column seven years later – sheer hard headedness.
I refuse to accept that the young people of this country have lost to the greedy mafias pulling the strings. Not under my watch!
Source: times
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