Widows in
Swaziland are allowed to stand in the 2018 nation elections but if they are
elected they must stay away from King Mswati III.
In the past,
widows have been discriminated against at election time because Swazi custom
dictates women in mourning are not allowed to hold public office.
Elections and
Boundaries Commission commissioner Ncumbi Maziya told a voter education meeting
at Bulandzeni Chiefdom that women in mourning had a constitutional right to
stand for election.
However, the Swazi Observer (3 April 2017) reported, ‘He
said a person wearing a mourning gown was not allowed to be near His Majesty
the King. If a certain constituency elected a person in such a situation, it
was highly possible that the woman could not attend the Parliament opening
event, where the King would also be in attendance. Maziya said that was when a
woman would have to exercise conscience by at least standing by the gate of
Parliament, to avoid being near the King.’
There was a
major row at the election in 2013 when Dumisani Dlamini a
chief’s headman in Ludzibini, an area ruled by Chief Magudvulela a former Swazi
Senator, threatened people would be banished from their homes if they nominated
Jennifer du Pont, a widow, for the upcoming election.
The Times
Sunday reported at the time, ‘[Dlamini] warned that those who would
nominate her should be prepared to relocate to areas as distant as five
chiefdoms away. Her sin was that she attended the nominations only a few months
after her husband died.’
The newspaper reported, ‘He said she
should still be mourning her husband.’
The Times
reported Du Pont did not wear standard black mourning gowns and was dressed in
a blue wrap-around dress known as sidvwashi.
Enough people in the chiefdom defied
Dlamini and Ms du Pont was duly nominated.
Elsewhere, during the primary elections
nomination held in August 2013, an 18-year-old woman was denied the chance to
be nominated to stand for parliament because she attended the nomination centre
dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
In another case a woman was not allowed to
nominate a candidate because she was wearing cargo pants.
See also
WOMAN
IN PANTS BANNED FROM ELECTION
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