May Day hypocrisy of the President of the Republic
On 1st of May the state broadcasting media was monopolised by President Michel to broadcast a message to the workers of Seychelles. The message nearly 5 minutes long, which was dictated by State House communications department, was read faithfully by the newsreader word for word.
While most of the message, as is standard fare, was blatant election propaganda in favour of the SPPF, in it the President of the Republic claimed that, 29 years ago SPPF gave the workers of Seychelles a holiday on the first of May. While this was true, Mr Michel, however, was hiding the biggest hypocrisy of all time.
29 years ago, the Seychelles was being ruled, not by a constitution but by decree with the fundamental rights of the citizen taken away by the barrel of an AK47 – the gun which Michel had carried so proudly the year before. One year later, on 26th March 1979, SPPF also gave us a one-party state constitution in which the internationally recognised fundamental human rights were relegated to simple intentions.
While, in 1979 we had indeed gained a holiday, we had lost the freedom to associate freely and to form trades unions. In fact, this right was to disappear completely and restored reluctantly (from the perspective of the SPPF) only in 1993, when the present constitution was voted into force by all the people of Seychelles in a referendum. This was to be the legacy of the party of President Michel when it came to other fundamental rights of the people of Seychelles. While they took away all the rights of the people, they gave back only privileges which only the party could dispense as in small mercies. This happened with trades’ unionism too.
In 1979 the workers were given a new organisation called the National Workers Union of Seychelles in addition to the May Day holiday. However, this body did not belong to the workers themselves. As was the practice in all communist countries, it belonged to the only party allowed to exist. 29 years ago, anyone who had an employ in Seychelles was deemed a member of the National Workers Union whether one liked it or not.
As member of the Union, however, one did not have rights inside the union. These rights belonged to the Party. For example, the address of the Union was to be at Maison du Peuple (the headquarters of the SPPF) or at any other address which the SPPF Central Committee may decide. Moreover, the funds of the Union “shall be administered under the direction of the Secretary of finance of the SPPF” and vested in the Central Committee of the Party. In addition, finally, the Union could only be dissolved “by a resolution passed at a Congress of the Seychelles Peoples Progressive Front”.
Today, with the people of Seychelles once again endowed with the fundamental right to associate freely and to form free trades unions, the National Workers Union is still an affiliation of the SPPF and run out of the Maison du Peuple. But the workers of Seychelles have walked out with their feet in droves. The total paid up membership today is not more than 30.
The only person who remains faithful to the institution is Mr Olivier Charles, better known as Charlie.