Africa-Press – Eswatini. The political development necessarily continues to be a subject of intense debate and interest ,and democracy demands nothing less.
Submissions at Sibaya have left all of us clear where decisive leadership efforts should be focused ,the consensus identified a number of areas where speedy intervention is needed ,these are; extreme poverty , high unemployment rate, a dysfunctional public health system ,peace ,corruption ,vocational education ,etc.
Whatever our ideological orientations ,none of us can afford to ignore these public submissions ,the populace has made its SOS call to all leaders to come to its rescue.
Politicians of all -isms must make this fundamental choice ,whether they will respond to the people`s SOS call ,or they will choose to be eternally wedded to their ideologies and abandon the people.
The sad reality is that radicals in the progressive camp have already made this sad choice ,to be wedded to their borrowed ideology and abandon the people – the sad choice to be preoccupied with smear campaigns against traditional structures and leaders.
Perhaps we need to start with a broader definition of leadership to contextualize our discussion; Kouzes and Posner (1991) offered the following – leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.
Sange et al offered that leadership is the capacity of a human community to share its future ,and specifically to sustain the significant processes of change required to do so.
An area of no lesser significance on the subject of leadership is the subject of leadership traits ,Gallup executive leadership research program conducted a research spanning four decades and over fifty thousand (50 000) candidates/interviewees in executive management and prospective leaders.
The research distilled all the various views and came up with twelve traits that are pivotal in ensuring a leadership with enhanced prospects of success ,the traits as distilled by Gallup are; intensity ,competitive ,inspiring ,courageous ,prepared ,consistent, enthusiastic ,caring about individuals ,success-oriented ,analytical ,focused and visionary.
Radical progressives have demonstrated unacceptable failure in understanding what the critical mass of Emaswati want and place as priority to those in leadership ,the situation demands organic solutions and innovative leadership. We look at a range of areas that have eminently prompted where the critical mass of Emaswati are ,and how this is being ignored by radical progressives.
The over 70% voter participation
in our recent elections
The high voter turnout ,despite calls for a boycott ,provides clear and scientific prove that the critical mass of the populace needs leaders who will demonstrate creativity and navigate our culturally- steeped political landscape.
The pursuit of an anti-monarch strategy is clearly at odds with the critical mass of Emaswati ,and the use of terrorist tactics is a crude effort to undermine democratic processes and institutions.
African progressives continue to seek to forcefully reengineer the African political reality of faith and culture- steeped communities ,these undemocratic efforts continue to paralyze them in terms of doing grassroot work; still the African radical progressive wants to use the hackneyed supremist parachute- approach of yester years where the populace had to speedily adapt to whatever the supremist believed was good for them.
We have made this argument before ,that the critical mass of the Swazi nation is tolerant and open to persuasion ,the problem is that radical progressives believe the combination of their hunger for power and donor-funds is all that is needed to change Africa ,nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact ,African countries need to raise the issue of some sections of the donor community who are actively ,perhaps unknowingly ,sponsoring the continent`s political instability.
The armed bandits who`re a
law unto themselves
The country was subjected to a prolonged spate of political-motivated murders ,the official figure stands at 88 lives that were brutally lost at the hands of armed bandits who called themselves solidarity forces.
From the time of the reign of terror to date no political organization seem to have any ownership over this armed group/s. The deluge of social network rants of some of these bandits demonstrate absolutely no deference to any political leadership/organization.
The expectation is that for a decision with such serious short and long-term implications ,an armed struggle ,there should be a whole body of debates and party resolutions adopting such a choice ,but no, there`s none. But still some political party leaders are mentioned in these rants and appear to have assumed a leadership role over these bandits ,whether this was done on personal bases or in pursuit of party resolutions we are not told.
This state of affairs attests to the fact that by and large these radical parties are far from being democratic institutions with vibrant internal democratic processes ,all the more reason why the donor community cannot play dumb and pretend they`re oblivious of these glaring facts. Any imagined transition happening under the current conditions would be unpopular and unsustainable as the current crop of progressive leaders have proven to be totally incapable of providing any visionary leadership.
Quality of progressive’s leaders elected to parliament wanting
The progressive entities who took the strategic choice to participate in our recent national elections process ought to have done so with clear objectives ,not least of which should have been to demonstrate to the entire populace the kind and quality of leaders they believe have the skills ,experience ,and aptitude to take the country forward.
That the few elected progressive parliamentarians are no towering giants in the house ,in fact in all fairness that some are actually below average ,shows yet again a leadership failure of mega proportions.
We can be certain that whatever interventions the nation expects of its elected officials will only be a reflection of the sum total of their skills ,experience and aptitude, nothing more nothing less.
We really can`t afford the cultic leader -follower culture we witnessed during the Zuma years in South Africa ,his followers would sarcastically retort to detractors with a song – YINDABA KABANI UMA NGITHANDA U ZUMA ( its none of your business why I like Zuma).
Still ,the quality of royal appointees in our parliament remains unmatched ,our democratic processes give no guarantees for the kind of quality leadership we need to reverse the worsening socioeconomic conditions.
Still ,the preoccupation in our leadership culture is about personal prestige ,the fierce electoral competition is thus characterized by exploitative food parcels donations to the clearly vulnerable electorate.
Elected representatives need a far longer orientation process than the few workshops meant to familiarize them with the legislature ,there`s a need for an intense political education program ,subjecting the 59 elected representatives to such a program would help initiate the process of a national-wide diffusion of deeper understanding of why quality leadership matters.
This is an area where progressive representatives ,given their call for an elected prime minister, should actually be excelling ,sadly their candidates lack even entry-level skills and experience.
Leadership experts have written volumes on the criticality of the individuals we entrust with leadership to be adequately prepared ,Stodgill (1974) provides a very easy to understand list; under capacity he mentions -intelligence ,alertness ,verbal facility ,originality ,and judgement. Under achievement Stodgill mentions – scholarship ,knowledge ,and athletic accomplishment.
Indifference to corruption
The bribery scandal that roils around the selection of 10 senators by the House of Assembly is becoming a culture ,similar allegations were also made in the previous parliament.
Among the early losers in the recent selection process in the House was a former managing director ,we do need to wonder how a country of such small population could somehow find a former MD not good enough for public office.
Clearly his integrity restrained him from using his healthy pension to buy votes, and that meant losing out to candidates who have absolutely no executive leadership experience ,and who ,until their selection ,were unknown and had no national footprint.
Again ,this was a brilliant opportunity for progressive parliamentarians ,when the whole nation`s attention was focused on the unfolding scandal ,to seize the moment and distance themselves from these allegations.
This same indifference was demonstrated by progressive parliamentarians in the previous parliament, in fact ,a former MP who now leads a political party, is said to often unashamedly talk about this corrupt conduct which he also witnessed ,but did nothing.
The radical progressive activists/leaders’ naïve attitude that all it takes to be a credible politician is to be rebellious and spew rabid hatred against the monarch displays a leadership deficit of astounding proportions.
We do know that the rebellious spirit celebrated by radical progressives has an inbuilt self-destruction factor ,so the increasing breakaway and splinter groups within the progressive camp are a natural outcome.
A Post-Transition period of
total progressive dominance
Whilst democrats are dedicated to ensuring a political landscape that allows and facilitates co-existence of different -isms ,radical progressives imagine a future where all -isms are bludgeoned into submission to their own ideology.
Their irresponsible call for a revolution is consistent with their imagined future of total undemocratic dominance ,and of course recent events have shown us that in their warped thinking the bloodier the better.
The political development of our country calls for originality ,leaders who are cognizant of the prevailing cultural affinities of the Swazi/African communities.
The political stability of our country must be our major preoccupation ,sought interventions that lack capacity to enhance national cohesion must be forcefully rejected.
The reality is that progressive leaders and organizations instead of presenting an attractive alternative have shown us a lack of leadership that in many ways threatens to take us back by decades.
Even the very traditional Maphalaleni inkhundla which once gave us the late charismatic Lomasontfo Dlamini as an MP ,has since evolved and learnt that elected leaders must posses some minimum entry level skills and experience.
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