Africa-Press – Eswatini. All aspiring political candidates need funding to play their part in the process of campaigning from bucopho to indvuna yenkhundla and right up to Members of Parliament (MPs) and Senate, yet the role of money in politics is arguably the biggest threat to our Eswatini-style democracy today.
This is, however, a global threat that knows no boundaries and is evident across all continents from huge corporate campaign donations in the United States and drug money seeping into politics in Latin America to corruption scandals throughout Asia and Europe. Attempts to tackle these challenges through political finance laws and regulations are often undermined by a lack of political will or capacity and poorly designed and enforced measures. We can all cry about the recent Senate voting process but in reality, each of the winning MPs have spent hundreds of thousands of Emalangeni to get to where they are. The MPs took the risk and the electorate then choose their own candidates regardless of what was spent on them.
The losing candidates have no way of recovering the money they spent on the campaign trail. The winning MP should naturally use this opportunity to recover some of the money spent on his or her campaign, one would imagine.
As things stand, this looks like the natural progression of things. However, this financially incentivised process compromises and disregards the constitutional requirement which gives reasons for the election of additional senators. It states that they are chosen by reason of their special knowledge or practical experience to represent economic, social, cultural/traditional or marginalised interests not already adequately represented in Parliament. Female senators automatically fit this criterion by virtue of the numbers in terms of low female representation, but the male senators are questionable. Maybe let us not get too deep into that but look more closely at the attributes of a good parliamentarian and a good senator in relation to access to personal money.
Realities of politics and money
We need, as emaSwati, to be realistic and not fantasize and romanticise politics and money. Whatever system we employ, money will play a role and the Tinkhundla System is no different. The electorate or voters are looking for a person with the financial capacity to represent them. In the case of political parties internationally, the political parties of the candidates do the fundraising and fund campaigns. In our case, the Tinkhundla political system will evolve and money will play a greater role. Tinkhundla is basically an independent based political system where the candidate funds his or her campaign from their own resources. Voters are given a choice based not only on their ability but also financial capacity. There are candidates with the ability but because they do not have the financial capacity to convince voters they lost. We must note that this does not start at the voting season but over many years before the elections; at least for those who know politics.
Cost of votes
The reality is that one can’t be just nice to people without having to spend money along the way. As a son of a politician, I know firsthand the financial cost of votes. The car you use to help the community costs money. The fuel and the time you use to travel to organise all kinds of assistance for the community cost money. You spend money on funerals, school fees, food etc. People talk of vote buying as if it’s a dirty word but in reality, every kindness costs someone and the ultimate goal is buying a vote now or later. Yes, the illegal direct vote buying where payment is exchanged for a vote is wrong but small personal favours rendered can also be interpreted as vote buying.
Evolution of Senate race
One can imagine the Senate race evolving to a point where aspiring MPs will increase the cost of the vote to very high levels. The cost has been increasing every five years. Parliamentarians, in one of their debates, may decide that this is not a totally bad thing. This might be a way of funding political campaigns at the grassroots level within the Tinkhundla political system; and maybe even increase that quota of senators from 10 to 20 to deliberately bring in corporate interest. They may also decide that maybe all Senate candidates should openly declare their running intentions after the primary elections. This would mean they could become part of the campaign team within the secondary elections. No one should come after one has won a parliamentary seat and claim to want the Senate vote. The Senate race must start after the primary elections.
Considering the definition of who should form part of the House of Senate one can get clear guardlines as to the calibre of emaSwati we are looking for. Eswatini Asians, Caucasians and mixed-race emaSwati can form part of the minorities. In many cases, these groups of emaSwati have the money. The other requirement would be emaSwati with special skills, abilities and expertise. These would include former chief executive officers (CEOs), academia and businesspeople from the corporate world. Again, these groups of people can afford the money to support campaigns and still provide what the Constitution requires. The only snag is the fact that the Senate salary is way below their pay grade. This would leave the King in council to look after the special groups such as people with disabilities, cultural/traditional interests and marginalised interests, which might not be able to fund the parliamentary campaigns.
Maybe one day the idea to have a specific house of chiefs and bantfwa’benkhosi will materialise, and then the appointed senators will be mainly professional people and minorities as per the Constitution and the cultural and traditional aspects will be taken care of by the house of chiefs. Africa must re-examine its traditional and indigenous structures so as to bring back political stability that will in turn bring about development and industrialisation at the same level as Asian countries.
Source: TIMES
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