Eswatini, where king has absolute rule, votes for parliament

Mbabane: Citizens of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, voted on Friday in parliamentary elections that are seen as largely undemocratic.

The landlocked country, nestled between South Africa and Mozambique, is Africa's last absolute monarchy. King Mswati III has been in power since he inherited the crown from his father, Sobhuza II, in 1986.

Some 500,000 are eligible to vote but most opposition groupings have called for a boycott of the vote.

"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.
Political parties banned

The king has the power to appoint the prime minister and cabinet, dissolve parliament and government, and command the police and army.

Political parties are banned from participating in the vote and candidates for parliament are selected by traditional chiefs, mostly loyal to the king.

Lawmakers are also not allowed to be affiliated with any political grouping.

Ultimately, parliament only serves an advisory role, and its acts need the king's seal of approval to be implemented.

"Monarchy is not a political system but a traditional system," Moses Dlamini, an adviser to the king, told French news agency AFP. "The system shall stay as it is."

Not everyone in the tiny kingdom agrees with Dlamini's assessment.

In 2021, pro-democracy protesters clashed with security forces in weeks of mass demonstrations.

"We live in a dictatorship. If one raises his voice, the police come knocking at his door at night and charge him for treason or something," Thantaza Silolo, spokesperson for the largest opposition group, the Swaziland Liberation Movement, said.

On Friday, the situation was calm, but flare-ups of demonstrations by those frustrated with their country's political system are not uncommon.

"They are saying that there are elections that are free and fair [but] there is nothing like that," Sakhile Nxumalo, 28, who heads the Swaziland Youth Congress, the youth wing of a banned pro-democracy party, said.

"We don't take this election seriously because they serve the interests of only a few."