 The Communist Party of Swaziland is continuing to organise actions protesting the upcoming parliamentary elections in the country. The parliament is widely seen as the king's puppet, with far-ranging restrictions on who can contest and the parliament members having no power to hold the monarchy accountable. Swaziland is the last remaining monarchy in Africa, and the people of the country have been facing brutal oppression for resisting the king's rule. Pius Villacati, the international secretary of the Communist Party of Swaziland, talks about why the people are opposing the elections, the repression and violence unleashed by the monarchy and how the people are building resistance. Well, the Communist Party of Swaziland opposes the parliamentary elections that are scheduled to be held this year in 2023. These elections are held under the auspices of what is known as the Tinkunja system, which is the society named for constituency-based system. But we know that this so-called constituency-based system of elections is under the control of the absolute monarchy. Now, the creation of a parliament under the absolute monarchy, the control of the absolute monarchy, means that it is nothing but the creation of a puppet parliament. Swaziland holds parliamentary elections every five years, and each time these elections meant to do nothing but create a toy parliament, which is used by the monarchy to amend whatever wishes that they want. So as the Communist Party of Swaziland, we are saying that the people of Swaziland have nothing to do with these elections, that they have nothing to do with the interests of the people of Swaziland, but only those of the monarchy. As such, we are saying that we must boycott and we must disrupt and stop these elections, and instead start a new process towards the democratization of Swaziland, which will allow multi-party democracy to take place. It is important to understand that in Swaziland, political parties remain banned since 12 April 1973, when the late King Sopuza II unilaterally repealed the 1968 constitution, which allowed political parties. So political parties are unable to participate in the elections, and as such, the control of the elections in the communities are controlled by local chiefs, and these local chiefs are the administrative arms of the monarchy, which sits at the center. Now the control of the local communities, particularly with the power that the chiefs have over the land, means that people are not even free, even under this system, to participate. The worst affected by these are women. Women, for instance, are made to kneel down on their knees when they are doing campaignings. Secondly, when it comes to the meetings in communities that are held under the chiefs, women are put to sit at the back, particularly widows. They are not even allowed to participate. As such, the elections themselves, the election process itself is an oppressive process controlled by the chiefs on behalf of the monarchy. As a result, the people coming out of the 59 constituencies that are elected into the national assembly, which is one part of the of parliament in Swaznet, those people coming out of there effectively are people who are doing nothing but driving the interests of the monarchy, not the interests of the people. The elections, therefore, can never be democratic, neither can they ever be free. As such, we have to dismantle them, then dismantling of the system necessarily means by courting the elections, not being a part of it, because they use this system to legitimize, they use the elections to legitimize the oppressive system through the election. So, Adi and his students use them to suggest to the international community that they, as the ruling dynasty, have been given some right to govern over the people, to rule over the people, when in fact they have used their oppressive powers to subject the people to their rule. Yes, the Communist Party has been waiting the struggles to render the country ungovernable for some time. What has happened is that in the past, the monarchy used the chiefs or relied heavily on the chiefs, particularly in the rural communities, to clamp down on the people. However, especially since June 2021, from May to June 2021, the strength of the chiefs has been weakened, and with the campaign of the Communist Party the democracy now campaign which we launched in 2019. The struggle has moved swiftly to the rural areas, and we have seen that the power of the chiefs has been weakened by the people. As a result, the monarchy has now even pushed the security forces to go down into the communities to try and shut down the people's struggles. Communist Party members and activists on the ground have been mobilizing the people, and as a result, we have faced a great deal of hardship, particularly coming from the security forces. Our members have been attacked, and so the most recent ones being Mvusele Lomkabela and Borne Mamba in Hossiya community. Now, the members have been mobilizing the people on the crowd, and there's been signs of clear support of the people against the elections, and more communities right now are actually disrupting the process of the elections. Some are calling for a dialogue, some are calling for a total change of the system, that the people can no longer continue to operate in the same way, that the system can no longer be allowed to continue in the normal way and claiming to be democratic will infect the opposite applies. The communities are not safe under the regime. Communities get raided by the security forces and assaulted, and as a result, the people's safety and security is questionable, and we have been saying that the people themselves should be the ones to defend themselves as a community, but also these community councils form part of grassroots-based democracy for now and for the future. The defense of the revolution must depend not necessarily on the state apparatus, but also on the people on the ground defending their gains and also spearheading measures to move forward. And as such, these community councils including the welfare council is to help communities because as things stand, we have the problem where people simply have no future in terms of the current system. As such, we are saying that the community which would have qualified and unemployed teachers, nurses, health professionals and so on, should be able to come together and take care of their internal issues, should be able to feed the poor, to look after the children who do not have access to education, to be able to educate them and so on. So that collectivity, collective efforts are male members of the community to defend themselves, but also to develop each other moving forward is an important aspect in terms of the communist party's program towards freedom and also towards socialism. We have said that the regime must not celebrate its 50th anniversary. That means 12 April 2023 which would be the 50th anniversary since the imposition of absolute monarchy rule. We have said that as the people, we must unite, we must organize each other to ensure that we intensify the struggle and ensure that 12 April is the last time that the regime exists. And this is part of the problem towards democratization of the country. And this is also part of the program for the dismantling of the Dinkunda elections this year. And as the people who are saying that the workers, the students themselves, the students, the community members have to rise up against tyranny. And this must be decisive, a decisive struggle for the total overthrow of the system. Recently the students were under the National Union of Students held elections and they have pronounced in their Congress with the new leadership. They have already pronounced that the regime must not celebrate its 50th anniversary. That means students in Southland are now part of the program actively in terms of mobilizing towards 12 April 2023. We are also working to see the trade union movement to galvanize it, to also take a similar posture in that regard. That way we will be able to organize the people as one force against the oppressive regime.