The Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) stands with the people in the fight against the Mswati autocracy’s Used Motor Vehicles Import Permit Specification Notice, which comes into effect this year. Ostensibly to limit carbon emissions and improve Swaziland’s contribution to SACU revenue, this Notice severely restricts the importation of used motor vehicles imported from outside of the South African Customs Union (SACU). Most such vehicles desperately relied upon for basic transport needs by the people emerge from Asian countries such as Japan and Singapore and are affordable for the majority of the population.

The restriction by the regime has nothing to do with any of the regime’s stated objectives, but to further suppress the people’s self-development initiatives while also protecting economic interests of the royal family as well as their friends and monopolies in the motor vehicle industry. With the restriction, the chronic poverty faced by the people will be worsened.

A majority of the people of Swaziland and small businesses are unable to afford the regionally assembled vehicles and thus rely heavily on the used vehicles imported from some Asian countries. Close to 70 percent of the people of Swaziland live below the poverty line, with about 50 percent of the youth remaining unemployed and without any real prospects of employment. An overwhelming number of the employed, however, earn on or below the minimum wage and are beleaguered by poverty.

The people’s overwhelming opposition to the regime’s stance is, in essence, an opposition to the chronic poor development of the country’s infrastructure. The regime has failed to ensure availability of ambulances, for instance, and the people have time and again relied on these low-cost imported vehicles as improvised ambulances to ferry their loved ones to hospitals. The public transport sector also relies on these vehicles, without which the people would not get to schools and places of employment. In addition, the government has failed to provide accommodation to most teachers and civil servants, and these workers have been left with no choice but to purchase these low-cost vehicles to use on a daily basis.

The heavy reliance on used low-cost vehicles is borne out of desperation from the masses in the face of an uncaring government which is unwilling to resolve the developmental problems faced by the people. The CPS thus supports the people’s march to be held outside parliament on Wednesday 21 October 2020 in opposition to the regime’s decision.

While the Communist Party of Swaziland supports the people in this cause, the Party, however, cautions the working class to not get entangled in tinkhundla members of parliament’s narrow interests in the matter. The people must not allow themselves to be hoodwinked by these MPs, as if they represent their interests. Tinkhundla MPs have only opposed the government’s decision merely to secure their personal re-election aspirations in the next tinkhundla elections, in the main. In addition, they represent petty bourgeois interests in the matter, and not the entire working class and poor. This is why they have not raised any opposition to the royal family’s extravagance over the years. They have not raised a finger with regard to other crucial developmental matters such as the improvement of public clinics and hospitals – and the collapsed healthcare system generally. Instead, they have manipulated the people with donations and fake philanthropy in order to secure parliamentary seats. No call has ever been made by tinkhundla MPs in support of students’ call for free quality education. Additionally, these MPs have no interest in the democratisation of the country. Instead, they wish to strengthen the tinkhundla system, the major cause of the people’s suffering.

The Communist Party of Swaziland thus says to the workers and poor of Swaziland: Do not trust tinkhundla MPs and tinkhundla parliament! No people-based solution can ever come out of Mswati’s puppet parliament! The people must use the initiated platform to make clear demands for radical change in the country, both economically and politically!

The Communist Party of Swaziland calls for maximum mobilisation of the people towards the protest action. Unity among the people must not, however, be in defence of dumping of vehicles by foreign countries, and neither should it be in support of tinkhundla MPs’ narrow selfish interests. Rather, mobilisation and unity must be for the complete change of the country towards democracy. The plethora of problems engulfing the people cannot be solved piecemeal, and neither can they be solved by the tinkhundla regime. The people must unite to overthrow the current system and replace it with a democratic one.

Forward to People’s Power!

Issued by the Communist Party of Swaziland