Africa-Press – Eswatini. A Cabinet minister who has been nominated to contest for Member of Parliament has been reported to the police for campaigning before the scheduled dates.
According to the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC), campaigning was only permissible after the primary elections on August 26.
Nominees are also allowed to appoint campaign managers three days after the primaries.
The minister, whose identity has been withheld as no charges have been preferred against him, was reported by some candidates who perceived that some of the activities he was engaged in at the area were low-key methods of campaigning.
These activities, it was alleged, involved distributing food parcels and other items to members of the community.
Some community members, however, claimed that there was nothing sinister with the minister’s actions as he has always helped out with food parcels in his community.
The other candidates where adamant that there was a thin line between handing out donations and campaigning and according to them, the minister had allegedly crossed that line.
The EBC earlier advised the nation to report all cases of people allegedly campaigning early at their nearest police station, where forms to facilitate this were readily available.
Deputy Police Information and Communications Officer, Inspector Nosipho Mnguni, urged members of the public to be patient as they were still investigating the complaints.
Mnguni confirmed that they have reported cases, which she could not delve that much into as investigations were still continuing.
Cases
She said two of these cases were reported around the Lubombo region from different tinkhundla centres.
The allegations against the minister come after Cabinet’s term of office was extended to September 25, raising concerns from some sectors that this would give them an unfair advantage, concerns which were dismissed by the EBC.
According to a legal expert, who preferred that his identity be withheld, that the issue of Cabinet ministers being in office while primary elections were just around the corner was not much of a concern because this might work against them.
The legal expert said people were smart and once someone starts campaigning close to the election dates, they would notice that something was amiss and may opt to elect someone else as they would be alone in the ballot box.
One of the recommendations made by EBC after the last elections was that the law should be enforced in dealing with the prevalence of treating and vote buying.
It was further noted that there was a need to review the law on campaigning to open for aspiring candidates to freely campaign in between elections.
The EBC Act, 2013, Section 18 provides a mechanism for handling and disposing of disputes reported to the commission.
Complaints
The 2018 National Elections report reflects that 127 complaints were received.
Complaints included those of canvassing for votes outside the stipulated campaigning period and bribery of the electorate.
In another separate incident in Manzini, Sabelo Dlamini, who has been nominated for the Bucopho position reported a former cabinet minister for allegedly threatening to shoot him.
The former minister has been nominated for MP.
According to reports, Dlamini reported the matter to the Manzini police last Friday after receiving the alleged threat.
The former minister is alleged to have asked why Dlamini was campaigning for an aspiring female MP, who he would be contesting against and when he denied same, the ex-minister is alleged to have made the threat.
The ex-minister has denied the allegations, saying as far he was concerned, Dlamini was his campaign manager.
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