3 September 2026
The Young Communist League of South Africa (YCLSA) reaffirms its principled opposition to the Tinkhundla system and calls on all its members, structures, allies and progressive forces to support and actively participate in the Global Week of Action for Democracy in Swaziland (GWOAS), culminating in the March for Democracy on Friday, 4 September 2026.
The Tinkhundla system is presented by the monarchy as a form of grassroots governance, but in practice it concentrates political power in the hands of King Mswati III and the royal establishment. Political parties are prevented from freely contesting for state power, while the country’s central political institutions remain subject to royal authority. By restricting organised political participation, weakening the independent voice of the working class and suppressing opposition, the system protects the power and wealth of the monarchy and its allies.
The YCLSA supports the position of the South African Communist Party because Tinkhundla denies the Swazi People meaningful political power while preserving the privileges of the monarchy and its capitalist partners. Genuine democracy requires the People to be free to organise, contest political power, hold their leaders accountable and determine how their country and its wealth are governed.
The YCLSA stands in unwavering solidarity with the People’s United Democratic Movement, the Communist Party of Swaziland, the Swaziland Youth Congress, the Swaziland Liberation Movement and all progressive forces struggling against the absolute monarchy. We salute their courage, sacrifice and enduring commitment to democracy, freedom and social justice.
For decades, the People of Swaziland have endured a system that bans political parties, suppresses democratic organisation and subjects activists, workers and political opponents to persecution, imprisonment and violence. The royal establishment has accumulated immense power and wealth while workers, young people, women, rural communities and the poor continue to face unemployment, inequality, poverty and political exclusion.
The struggle in Swaziland is therefore not merely a domestic dispute or a narrow demand for electoral reform. It is fundamentally a class struggle. The absolute monarchy represents a form of feudal-capitalist domination in which the royal establishment exercises extensive control over the state, the economy and the land while the working class and poor are denied a meaningful share in the country’s wealth and political life.
As the SACP Central Committee has affirmed, the struggle of the People of Swaziland for democracy forms part of the broader struggle of the Peoples of Southern Africa against oppression, authoritarianism, exploitation and neo-colonial domination. The monarchy must also be understood within the history of colonialism. British colonial rule preserved and reinforced chiefly and feudal institutions as instruments of indirect control. These structures developed into a political order that continues to serve elite and capitalist interests by restricting working-class organisation and maintaining conditions favourable to exploitation.
The YCLSA consequently understands the Swazi struggle as more than a fight for formal democracy. It is a struggle to dismantle an oppressive political and economic system and to liberate the Swazi People in general and the working class in particular. Political freedom must be accompanied by social and economic transformation. The land, minerals and productive wealth of Swaziland must serve the People rather than enrich a royal minority and its capitalist partners. The fundamental democratic demand remains clear: the People shall govern.
The YCLSA fully supports the GWOAS March for Democracy scheduled for Friday, 4 September 2026. We will join COSATU, the SACP, PUDEMO, SWAYOCO, the CPS, SWALIMO, the Swaziland Democracy Campaign and other progressive formations at Madiba Park, Union Buildings, at 09:00 before marching to the Swazi High Commission in Pretoria.
More than five decades of banned political parties is more than five decades too long. The march will be peaceful, disciplined and rooted in the shared demands of the democratic movement: the unbanning of political parties, the establishment of genuine multiparty democracy, an end to political repression and accountability for abuses committed under the protection of the monarchy.
The continued survival of the absolute monarchy has consequences beyond Swaziland. It encourages reactionary forces seeking to normalise autocracy, silence working-class organisation and reverse the democratic gains secured through generations of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggle. The struggle of the Swazi People is part of the unfinished work of African liberation and decolonisation.
South Africa cannot claim complete liberation while the People of a neighbouring country are denied their fundamental political rights. Our freedom is bound together. The struggle for socialism is continental and international, and victory over feudal-capitalist reaction in Swaziland will strengthen workers, young people and oppressed communities throughout the region.
The YCLSA calls upon all its members, comrades, allies and progressive organisations to join the march. Let us demonstrate through our presence and collective action that the working class and People of South Africa stand shoulder to shoulder with the People of Swaziland.
We also call upon supporters of democracy and justice to sign and share the Fourth Pillar of Struggle Petition. The petition demands an end to institutional relationships between South African universities and colleges and Swazi state institutions until democracy prevails. It further calls upon South African institutions of higher learning to end ties with Israeli, Emirati and Moroccan institutions implicated in occupation, repression and violations of the rights of oppressed peoples. The YCLSA endorses this campaign alongside SASCO, COSATU and other progressive formations.
Our internationalism cannot be selective. The commitment that places us alongside the People of Swaziland must also place us alongside the Palestinian People confronting occupation and genocide, and the Sahrawi People of Western Sahara struggling for self-determination and freedom from Moroccan occupation. We stand with the People of Sudan against war, displacement, reaction and foreign interference, and with the workers, women, young people and democratic forces of Myanmar resisting military rule.
We stand with the People of Cuba in defence of their sovereignty and socialist revolution, and we demand an end to the imperialist blockade. We stand with the People of Venezuela against sanctions, destabilisation and every attempt to deny them the sovereign right to determine their political and economic future.
International solidarity is not charity. It is the unity of oppressed peoples and working-class movements confronting a common system across different terrains. For South African communists, solidarity is not an optional sentiment; it is a political and class obligation.
The YCLSA will continue to organise, mobilise and struggle alongside the liberation movement of Swaziland until its People achieve democracy, dignity, social justice and freedom.
The Tinkhundla system must fall. The absolute monarchy must give way to democratic rule. The wealth of Swaziland must serve its People. The People shall govern.
One coalition. One demand. Democracy for Swaziland.
Show your solidarity and sign the Petition.
The Petition can be found at the link:
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One coalition. One demand. Democracy for Swaziland.
Issued by the Young Communist League of South Africa (Ufasimba)
National Secretary Cde Jan Nabane
