NOW THEY WANT TO PUNISH THE CHILDREN: SENATE PRESIDENT’S REMARKS EXPOSE THE DANGEROUS POLITICS OF LOYALTY IN MSWATI’S ESWATINI

There are statements that expose far more than their speaker probably intended. The reported remarks by Senate President Lindiwe Dlamini suggesting that children of people who oppose the Government should be scrutinised or excluded from recruitment into Eswatini’s security forces should disturb every liSwati who believes that a child must never inherit the political “sins” of a parent.

According to reports, Dlamini raised concerns in Parliament about the recruitment of an individual whose parent was allegedly associated with anti-government activity and later went into exile. She called for the recruitment to be investigated. Swaziland News went further, reporting her as saying that children of people opposing Government should not be employed in the security forces. The Times of Eswatini independently reported the underlying parliamentary intervention, although its account described her position more narrowly as calling for an investigation into a particular recruitment

That distinction matters. But either version raises an enormous political question.

Since when did political opinion become hereditary?

If your father criticises the Government, are you now born suspicious?

If your mother demands democracy, should your employment application be quietly thrown into a bin?

If your family opposes the political system, must you carry that label into adulthood?

That is not national security. That is collective political punishment.

More astonishingly, it collides directly with the Constitution that Parliament itself is supposed to uphold. Section 20 states that all persons are equal before the law and specifically prohibits discrimination based on political opinion. The Government itself has previously cited that provision when reporting on Eswatini’s human-rights obligations.

The State’s own public-service rules also say something revealing: political impartiality of the Public Service is fundamental, while recognising that an individual officer may hold personal political views. The principle is supposed to be the political neutrality of the employee—not an investigation into the political beliefs of their parents.

This is precisely why Eswatini’s political system needs serious democratic scrutiny.

Under an absolute monarchy, the line between loyalty to the country, loyalty to Government and loyalty to the existing political order can become dangerously blurred. A citizen can oppose Tinkhundla and still love Eswatini. A citizen can demand an elected Prime Minister and still love Eswatini. A citizen can criticise King Mswati’s political powers and still love Eswatini.

The monarchy is not the nation. The Government is not the nation. The people are the nation.

And no child should lose an opportunity because their parent understood that distinction.

There is another uncomfortable dimension to this story. Swaziland News reports that former trade unionist Jabulani Nxumalo’s son, Second Lieutenant Mkhonzeni Nxumalo, serves within military intelligence despite his father’s previous opposition politics. That specific employment claim has not been independently verified in the sources I reviewed, so it should be treated as an allegation rather than established fact.

But if true, it would expose the absurdity of judging children according to their parents’ politics.

Was the son somehow dangerous when his father opposed the system, but acceptable once sufficient trust had been established?

National security cannot operate according to political bloodlines.

Imagine where such thinking leads.

Today it is security-force employment. Tomorrow it could be scholarships. Government tenders. University places. Promotions. Business licences.

Eventually an entire generation learns that advancement does not depend upon ability, integrity or qualifications, but upon whether their family is considered politically obedient.

That is how authoritarianism reproduces itself—not merely through prisons and police, but by making opportunity conditional upon silence.

Eswatini deserves something better.

Our young people should never have to choose between their conscience and their careers. They should not have to prove that their parents worship the Government before being allowed to serve their country.

And Parliament, above all institutions, should never entertain the idea that political dissent contaminates a bloodline.

A government afraid of its critics is already insecure.

A political system afraid of its critics’ children is revealing something far more frightening.