Sobhuza II's Royal Decree in Swaziland
King Sobhuza II repealed Swaziland's constitution by decree on 12 April 1973, five years after independence, and the country has had no legal opposition since. He had reigned since 1899, having succeeded at four months old, and by 1973 had been on the throne longer than any monarch in recorded history. The constitution Britain had left in 1968 was a Westminster arrangement with a bill of rights, an elected assembly and political parties. Sobhuza had opposed it during the negotiations and his own royalist party had won every seat in 1967. In 1972 a small opposition party won three. The decree that followed declared the constitution unworkable and un-Swazi, an alien document that had permitted practices incompatible with the traditional way of life. It dissolved parliament, banned all political parties and meetings, prohibited demonstrations, and vested all legislative, executive and judicial power in the king. It also gave the police power to detain without charge for sixty days, renewable. A new order in 1978 introduced the tinkhundla system, in which candidates stand as individuals through traditional constituencies and parties remain illegal, and the king appoints the prime minister, the cabinet, the judges and a share of parliament. Sobhuza died in 1982 after eighty-two years. Mswati III succeeded in 1986 and renamed the country Eswatini in 2018. Protests in 2021 demanding an elected government were suppressed with dozens killed. It is the last absolute monarchy in Africa. The 1973 decree has never been repealed, and a constitution granted in 2005 kept the ban on parties.
- Year: 1973 CE
- Category: Political
