07 November 2024 | State House.
Excellency, the youths, the future of Africa, I want to say a very good evening to you.
I am indeed deeply moved by the honour that has been proposed and that has been bestowed upon me. The award, the Africa Freedom Prize, on the initiative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation is indeed a great honour for me. I did not know that the foundation was following me, and you know it is very important because sometimes in life, you may be doing a lot of things and you don’t realized who exactly is following you, and I am indeed deeply honoured that the Friedrich Naumann Foundation was following me.
But before I go into what it means for me at this point, I want to invite you to join me to revisit my journey in politics and in the national affairs of my country. I was drawn into politics by circumstances in which my country was in, that was when I was a young Anglican priest in the church. Seychelles had been through a one party state; in fact, it was still going through a one party state, in which democracy and the rule of law has been discarded and which as a result, citizens were denied of their rights, injustices, persecution of political opponents, and innocent people, including extra judicial killings, disappearances and illegal imprisonment, where part of the order of the day.
As a priest, I was called to share the experiences of those who suffered, besides expressing my compassion in private; I had to make the choice of whether I should speak out publicly about what was going on, or remain silent. I had the opportunity to speak out, I chose to do so in church, in a sermon that was broadcast on radio. And for doing so, the state banned me. I was not even aloud to read a verse of scripture if that was on radio. This how bad it was. After this, I was drawn into the underground movement, because political parties were not allowed. But I was drawn in the underground movement, not for us to carry out illegal activities, but for us to strengthen and to promote the essence of democracy. For us to make known what we believed in, and so there was continuity in what I believed in, and slowly there were more people who were attracted to what was happening. And there was an opposition movement in exile in the UK, but being out there were totally different to being pin Seychelles itself. So, I kept fighting for multiparty democracy, and eventually we won that fight. Multiparty democracy was established in Seychelles. So I became a leader of a political party, but at the same time, and here I will say the church was very supportive of my activities, because those activities were part of what the church itself was preaching. Respect of human rights, Respect of the individual, respect of structures that would be legitimate. So, I had the support of the church, and slowly the political situation in the country evolved, and other political party were formed. The new homegrown parties had little impact, because people were still thinking of the former leaders. But we believe, we believed in democracy. Even though we were not given great importance, we felt we should have been given, we persisted. And you will have notice that this is one word that I keep using with you young people. Persistence, do not give up, insist, fight, stand for what you believe in and this is exactly what I was doing. I was still considered a youth then, I was under 35, so I kept going at it.
Eventually at the first election in 1993, after adopting a new constitution, the political party that I was part of, won 9%. This was just enough for us to have one foot inside. I was chosen as the member of the party to go into parliament. I spoke on every topic because I was there alone. When the motion was on fisheries, I became a fisheries expert, when it was on climate I had to educate myself in order to speak on those issues. And you will not believe it, but as probably the youngest member of parliament then, and as the sole member of my party in the first five years, in the first mandate, I was the one who asked the most questions, I was the one who brought the most number of motions before the house. And sometimes I did not even know whether my motion would be seconded, but they felt pity for me, they said OK, let us second his motion and they did not realized by seconding my motion that also gave me a right of reply. And so I did everything that I could. We slowly made progress and people then started listening to what we were saying. 1993 I went in as a proportional member, in 1998, at the second election, I won my constituency, so with the party moved from 9% to 27%, then we moved from 27% in 2021 to 44%. People started listening to what we were saying. Because what we were saying made sense. And in 1998, as I mentioned I was also elected leader of the opposition, because we defeated the second party of the former president. In 2020, of course, we won the election, but you see because I stood five times or six times, a lot of people were saying, but you have presented yourself as presidential candidate and you have lost, it’s high time you stop doing so. But people did not realized that they were missing the point. It was not a question of, I had set out to become the president of the country, this was not the goal. The goal was to bring about democratic change in the country .The aim was to set the country on a path of democracy, on a path of respect, on a path of removing the dictatorship that was in existence, it was a path to make a democratic system work in the Seychelles.
This should always be the basis of our struggles in politics; this should be the foundation that we set right from the beginning. And unless we have the democratic principles firmly established, we will not able to build anything else. So, this was the work that I had set out to do, and this is where the persistence, the endurance and the progress came from. Yes, the conditions were very difficult; the political scene had changed a little from the darkest days even though we had now a multiparty democracy. Well, we called it a multiparty democracy, because we had moved from the one party state. But the presence of many political parties, does not indicate democracy. Democracy is much deeper than just having political parties, because democracy touches you right here. Democracy is much stronger, because it is a deep feeling, but it is not only a feeling, but about showing respect for your neighbor, it’s about guiding others, it’s about standing firm, its about respecting each other as human beings. Of course I realized that the principle I was standing for were liberal principles, and as a liberal you have on the one hand the strong belief in the protection of human rights and on the other hand, you have a strong economic system, whereby anyone can participate. So, with those liberal principle I found it easy for me to move forward and for me to associate myself with my people. An important mission was also to break down the climate of fear that continued to exist, for people to feel that it was there country, and that they had a right to its protection and to all the opportunity it could bring. My blood and that of other leaders and supporters were shed, for the sake of that democracy. But because we had to succeed we wipe away the blood and tended to the stiches that we have received and we carried on stronger and more determined than ever.
The Presidential election of 2015 in the Seychelles was more crowded than ever, there were more candidates. Everybody had found this new freedom, and everybody felt that they could also lead the country, which was good. But at the same time before those elections, we manage to gather all the opposition together and we agreed on one simple principle. If we went into those elections and there was a second round, all the other leaders would support the one who had received the most votes. And I was the pone who has received the most votes, they kept their promise. Everybody gathered around me and I lost the elections by 193 votes. So can you imagine in any part of Africa if the oppositions loses by 193 votes, what would happened. I made sure nothing happened, we went to court, we contested the results and we lost, because again there was the influence of the state in the Judiciary. We lost, but again we learned lessons, and we came back because we believed in democracy.
We came back, we did the reforms that were required. The following year in 2016, the opposition that I was leading won a majority in the parliamentary elections. This should have been the results of the Presidential elections. But because of the insistence on peace, of getting our supporter to realized that even though they were angry, to say no, we are not going down on the streets, we are not going to burn the country. Because it is our country. We want to lead this country, why should we destroy it, it’s a tourist destination. And if tourist learned that there is violence in Seychelles, they will keep away from the Seychelles and what will be the state of our economy?
Because our GDP, tourism brings in 65% of our GDP. Again, we believed that our time would come. So in 2020, we had the elections and I won by an overwhelming majority of 55% of the votes and at the same time during those years in the opposition with a majority, we did not act like we were in charge. Yes, the president was from another party, but we had this dialogue, we sat down with him, we had to approve his ministers, so we said to him these are some of the conditions on which we believe should be present in order for us to approve your ministers. So, we gave him ministers. We did not give him all the ministers he wanted, but we gave him ministers. The country continued to function. We pass laws; we brought amendments to those laws. So we was always moving forward. And we had bipartisan agreements. For example during those years, when I was leading a majority in parliament, that was the time I brought a motion to have a truth and reconciliation commission, in other for us to look at- well basically we went through the same process, as south Africa went through in order for us to see, what those dark days really entailed.
All in all we had this bipartisan approach to many things, and this what brought about a peaceful transition in 2020. People were scared of the military because after all it was a liberation army that had brought the previous party into power in 77, but everything went smoothly and the former president Mr. Faure played a very important role and to this day we are friends. I support him in the missions that he is called upon to perform, in many of the SADC country for example in observation elections. So this is what democracy is all about, it is about you having your way of thinking, me having mine but we can still sit down and talk. We do not need guns, we do not need a coup, we do not need violence. But we can seat down work things out and move.
So my dear friends, for me this should be the future of Africa. Africa should be a continent were we put the guns down, were the guns are silent, and were the young people of Africa lead this continent into peace, into democracy, into economic development, were we give our continent the lace it truly deserves on the world stage. And not where we just talk down, by others, by the west, but were we the young and intelligent leaders of Africa can stand up and see how we can develop our countries, instead of export everything, to see what we can contribute.
So again, it is an immense pleasure that I experience today as I stand here before you to received the Africa Freedom Prize, to me it means a lot because it also means that when we do what is right we are recognized. So again, I want to say thank you very much to the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, thank you very much to all these various organizations with which I have worked to all those many people who have stood by my side and who have given me the encouragement. And I can tell you one thing, elections will be held next year in my country, the people will decide, whether they want me back, for a second and final term or whether they want somebody else. But I can tell you, follow the Seychelles, If I lose I will leave quietly, I will go back home enjoy my grandchildren and encourage you the young leaders. This is what I will do. I will not take up arms and fight and try to get back into office.
So thank you very much for your attention, and I want again to encourage everyone to follow the path of peace, to follow the path of democracy, to believe in yourself, to have a vision and that vision is what will make your respective countries stand out, it is that vision that you have as young people, that will help your country become number one on the Mo Ibrahim Index. It is that vision that will help your country to put the resources at the disposition of your population, to give your young people the best education to give your population the best health services, to bring about this element of peace and prosperity. This is what life is all about, and please young people remain yourself, remain who you are today, lead a simple life, position will come but don’t let position go to your head. Never do that, and titles can easily confuse you, your Excellency, don’t let those titles comes after you. You parents gave you a beautiful name when you were born, let this be the title you work with, the title that makes you proud.
I thank you.
