Africa-Press – Eswatini. New and old faces form part of the 35 people who are in the race for 10 Senate seats.
Former senators, ministers, businesspeople, chief executive officers (CEOs) as well as a mayor are part of the 35 people who were nominated for Senate. Yesterday, the House of Assembly undertook another exercise of the parliamentary business, where they nominated 35 people who will stand for election tomorrow to form part of the 30 senators of the 12th Parliament. The crucial exercise was conducted according to the Senate Elections Act of 2013. The nomination lasted until 5:17pm. The Act stipulates that the Members of Parliament (MPs) should elect five women and five men into Senate.
Nominees
According to the list of nominees, 12 of them are women and 23 are men. The figure is much lower than in 2018, where there were 63 nominees. Of these, 30 were females and 33 males.
Among those who were nominated were former senators who were part of the 11th Parliament and some were also nominated in the 10th Parliament. In the female category, former Minister of Health Lizzie Nkosi was nominated, former senators in Busi Dlamini and Khanyisile Malambe were nominated. Another face that made a comeback was that of former Minister of Health Sibongile Simelane.
Prominent faces among the female nominees included; wife to former Deputy Prime Minister Dimpho Masuku, Cheshire Homes Director Nonhlanhla Khabo Dlamini, Eswatini Tourism Authority (ESTA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Linda Nxumalo and Ezulwini Municipal Council Mayor Bongile Mbingo. Inasmuch as the female list was full of popular faces, only four of them were former legislators while the others were champions in their various industries. New faces were also part of the list such as Nkosingisite Nxumalo, Fezeka Dlamini, Nomcebo Shongwe and Lindiwe Ngwenya.
Five of the female nominees received more than one nomination and these included Khabo Dlamini, Bongile Mbingo, Khanyisile Malambe, Fezeka Dlamini and Nkosingisite Nxumalo.
Under the male category, old faces from previous Parliaments also dominated the list. The usual suspects of the 11th Parliament also made it to the nominated Senate hopefuls. These were former Deputy Senate President Ndumiso Mdluli, former senator Tony Sibandze. Others who were Senators in the 10th Parliament and were nominated in the previous term but were unsuccessful, are; Adam Bomber Mthethwa and Bhutana Dlamini, they also formed part of the nominees yesterday.
In the male category, Simanga Thwala received four nominations and was followed by Muziwandile Hlatshwako with two nominations, Sibongiseni Malinga, Zombodze Magagula, Bhutana Dlamini and Siphelele Mkhonta. Clerk to Parliament Benedict Xaba, who played the role of Presiding Officer during the nominations, told the House that scoring a lot of nominations would not count in the voting stage. He said voting was independent from the nominations. Since morning at around 10am, some of the Senate hopefuls were all over the parking bays in Parliament, the cafeteria, libraries, among other meeting spots, canvassing for nominations. Yesterday was not the first time as even last Friday, during the swearing-in of MPs, some of the hopefuls were spotted.
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