BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – His Majesty King Mswati III has congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his re-election to become that country’s president.
The King has congratulated the President through Prime Minister Russell Mmiso Dlamini. The Prime Minister also congratulated the Russian President on behalf of Her Majesty the Indlovukazi, Eswatini Government and the entire nation of Emaswati.
“I have it in command by His Majesty King Mswati III, Her Majesty the Queen Mother, the Government and the people of Eswatini to extend profound congratulations to H.E Vladimir Putin, the Government and the people of the Russian Federation on successful elections and H.E Putin’s re-election as President,” Dlamini said on his Facebook page.
The Prime Minister further stated that Eswatini would continue to work together with Russia on matters that have to do with the development of both countries. “Eswatini reaffirms her desire to further enhance and consolidate the bonds of friendship and cooperation that exist between the two countries,” the Premier said.
On Tuesday this week, this publication reported that over the past weekend, Russia expressed its interest on helping the country produce enough thermal power. This was one of the discussions held by the Prime Minister over the past weekend when he met Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Kingdom of Eswatini, His Excellency Alexander V. Surikov.
What was also discussed was collaboration in ICT, in particular e-governance and space technology. Russia will also share success stories with Eswatini on how they manage State Owned Enterprises. Government will assemble a team to do a programme of action on these proposed areas of cooperation.
Russia also invited Eswatini to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum taking place in June this year. Eswatini and the Russian Federation have enjoyed 25 years of diplomatic relations.
On this past Sunday, Reuters reported that Putin won 87.8 percent of the vote, the highest ever result in Russia’s post-Soviet history, according to an exit poll by pollster the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM). However, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and other nations have said the vote was neither free nor fair due to the imprisonment of political opponents and censorship.
Inspired by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic prison last month, thousands of opponents protested at noon against Putin at polling stations inside Russia and abroad. Putin told reporters he regarded Russia’s election as democratic and said the Navalny-inspired protest against him had had no effect on the election’s outcome.
Putin was reported to have criticised the upcoming USA elections when asked by NBC, a US television network, on whether the Russian elections were democratic. He was reported to have said the world was laughing at what was happening in USA, labeling it as a disaster, not a democracy.
“…Is it democratic to use administrative resources to attack one of the candidates for the presidency of the United States, using the judiciary among other things?” Putin was reported to have asked, making an apparent reference to four criminal cases against Republican candidate Donald Trump.
