MIDRAND, SOUTH AFRICA – Eswatini’s representative to the Pan-African Parliament, Hon. Welcome Dlamini, has challenged African leaders to abandon the continent’s overreliance on Western-style democracy and instead re-centre traditional governance structures in shaping Africa’s future.
Dlamini made the remarks during a session in Midrand where Ambassador Churchill Ewumbue Monono presented his book “New Wine in Old African Calabashes”, which calls for a rethinking of democracy and the elevation of indigenous institutions.
Speaking after the presentation, Dlamini said Africa’s biggest post-independence error was adopting a one-size-fits-all democratic model, describing multiparty politics as an ill-fitting system that has led to instability across many nations.
“Our failure was in treating Western democracy as universal,” he said, calling it a model that ignores Africa’s social and historical context.
Dlamini further questioned the exclusion of traditional leaders and monarchs from continental democratic dialogues, despite their proven leadership roles in pre-colonial governance and liberation movements.
He said there is a pressing need to reclaim Africa’s political identity by including chiefs, royal councils, and other indigenous structures in the formal governance architecture.
Dlamini urged the Pan-African Parliament and the African Union to stop “copying and pasting” foreign models of governance and instead build a uniquely African system rooted in cultural values, communal leadership, and ancestral institutions.
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