MBABANE, Eswatini
Voters in Eswatini will cast their ballots on Friday in parliamentary elections whose outcome will make little difference to the politics of a country controlled by Africa’s last absolute monarch.
King Mswati III has ruled the
southern African kingdom of about 1.2 million people since 1986, when he
inherited the crown from his father, Sobhuza II.
Political parties are banned,
but individual candidates can run for seats in the House of Assembly every five
years.
The power of the politicians
elected in these polls consists mainly of being able to make suggestions to the
king, who is free to ignore them.
The election will be dominated
by monarchists and other candidates sympathetic to the ruler, said Louw Nel, a
senior political analyst at Oxford Economics Africa, in a note.
Two members of the previous
parliament who supported the pro-democracy movement were jailed, and a third
fled the country, he added.
“It is a misnomer to call what
is happening in Swaziland elections,” Sivumelwano Nyembe, spokesperson for
Eswatini’s Multi Stakeholder Forum, a pro-democracy activist group, said.
Anger against the governing
system has been building for years, and pro-democracy protests turned violent
in 2021.
Campaigners say the king has
consistently evaded calls for meaningful reforms that would nudge Eswatini,
which changed its name from Swaziland in 2018, in the direction of democracy.
Mswati’s opponents also say he
uses public money to fund a lavish lifestyle which he shares with his 15 wives,
while most of the country’s population is made up of struggling subsistence
farmers.
The 55-year-old king denies
being an autocrat and is unapologetic about his riches.
Eswatini is rated “Not Free”
by the U.S.-based organisation Freedom House, which says the king exercises
ultimate authority over all branches of the national government and effectively
controls local governance through his influence over traditional chiefs.
The South African Development
Community (SADC) has sent an electoral observation mission to Eswatini at the
kingdom’s invitation, and will release a preliminary statement on Sunday.
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