Eswatini: Opposition may not oppose – and might be murdered
Political challenges to the absolute rule of the king are not permitted, and will be punished.
Mlamuli Gumedze
Opposition parties in Eswatini face a greater problem than those in much of the rest of the continent – they are not even allowed to contest elections.
The country has effectively been a no-party state under the control of the king for 51 years. Rivals to the king’s dominance, such as the People’s United Democratic Movement (Pudemo), Swaziland Youth Congress and Swaziland Solidarity Network, were proscribed under the Suppression of Terrorism Act of 2008.
Aspiring opposition leaders, activists and protesters face severe intimidation and death.
Those killed include former Pudemo leader Sipho Jele, killed in 2010, and advocate Thulani Maseko, a human rights lawyer, gunned down in front of his wife and two children in 2023.
Although Maseko’s assassination was condemned by the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights, nothing has been done to secure justice for his family or to end King Mswati III’s repressive reign. Instead, the government has rubbed salt in the wounds.
In an attempt to further intimidate critics of the government, Maseko’s wife, Tanele Maseko – herself a widely respected gender activist – was detained, interrogated and stripped of her passport and phone at a border post between South Africa and Eswatini in March.
This latest incident was sadly not an isolated one. The government has been making defamatory remarks and spreading disinformation about Tanele for months in a blatant attempt to try and shift the blame for her husband’s brutal murder.
These efforts are designed to scare and fragment opposition to Mswati, which has been rising due to high levels of corruption and economic hardship.
Unfortunately, the international community has played into the king’s hands, failing to hold him accountable. One has to ask: If democratic states will not stand up for human rights in a country as small and economically marginal as Eswatini, what hope is there to stop the rise of authoritarianism elsewhere?