Eswatini's politics: a crown and a parliament without parties

What the constitution says the system is

The constitution adopted in 2005 took effect on 8 February 2006, the third written order since independence: the Westminster-style constitution of 1968, repealed by King Sobhuza II on 12 April 1973, was followed by a constitution promulgated in 1978. Section 79 defines the system of government as "a democratic, participatory, tinkhundla-based system which emphasises devolution of state power from central government to tinkhundla areas and individual merit as a basis for election or appointment to public office". Section 80 divides the country into tinkhundla for "political organisation and popular representation", each made up of one or more chiefdoms.

Power is placed at the top. Under section 64 the executive authority of the state vests in the King as head of state, to be exercised directly or through the cabinet, and includes the powers to summon and dissolve parliament, declare a state of emergency, issue pardons and order a referendum. Section 106 places the supreme legislative authority in the "King-in-Parliament", and section 108 provides that a bill does not become law until the King has assented to it and signed it. Section 65 obliges the King to act on cabinet advice in general, with exceptions wherever a power is expressed to be exercised in his discretion, and allows him to refer advice back once.

Wikipedia's account summarises the result as an absolute monarchy with constitutional provisions and Swazi law and custom. Freedom House, in its report for 2024, writes that the king exercises ultimate authority over all branches of government and effectively controls local governance through his influence over traditional chiefs. Its 2018 example is the change of the country's name, made without any constitutional process or parliamentary approval.

How the Ngwenyama and the Ndlovukati share the crown

The monarchy is dual. The King is also iNgwenyama, "the lion", and the constitution calls him "a symbol of unity and the eternity of the Swazi nation", the hereditary head of state, Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Force and Commissioner-in-Chief of the Police and Correctional Services. His counterpart is the Ndlovukati, "the she-elephant", spelt Ndlovukazi in the constitution, which describes her as traditionally the mother of the iNgwenyama and "the symbolic Grandmother of the Nation" with "a moderating advisory role". Until a new king is installed, or while he is absent or unable to act, she governs as Queen Regent.

Wikipedia's article on the country's politics records that the king and queen mother ruled together in practice until the reign of Sobhuza II. Before colonial rule the senior queen checked the king through her own control of some regiments and of the rain-making medicines, and she had a part in the Incwala ritual. British policy and Sobhuza's long reign moved power toward the king. The constitution also makes the queen mother's official residence "the legislative and ceremonial capital of the nation and the arena of the Incwala and Umhlanga". Parliament sits at Lobamba, and Britannica and the Encyclopedia of the Nations give Mbabane as the administrative and judicial capital.

Succession is governed by Swazi law and custom, and the constitution leaves it there. Wikipedia's politics article describes the customary rules: the king is always of the Dlamini clan and the queen mother never is; the heir is chosen through the rank of his mother; the first two wives, chosen by the national councillors, come from the Matsebula and Motsa clans and their sons cannot inherit. Much of the tradition, the article notes, remains secret. Both the King and the Ndlovukati have immunity from suit.

How the parliament is put together

Parliament, the Libandla, has two chambers and sits at Lobamba. The constitution fixes maximum sizes, and Freedom House's account of the 2023 parliament shows how they were filled.

The numbers have grown with the constituencies. Fifty-five members were elected in 1993, the first election with a secret ballot and direct votes, with ten more appointed by the King, according to the Encyclopedia of the Nations; Freedom House counts 59 elective seats in 2023. The extra four women are a constitutional quota that the House fills from regional shortlists when the elected chamber falls short. In 2023 it was needed: the African Union observer mission, cited by Freedom House, found that only 8 of the 59 elected members were women and that women held 17.3% of Parliament after the King's appointments.

Freedom House judges the chambers weak in practice. It writes that parliament cannot initiate legislation, has little oversight of the budget and approves the King's priorities, and that the King's veto is written into the constitution.

How an election works without parties

Elections are held every five years after the King dissolves parliament, and the Elections and Boundaries Commission runs them. Voting starts in the chiefdoms. Wikipedia's account describes nomination by a show of hands at a chiefdom meeting, each nominee needing the support of at least ten members, with four to ten nominees per post. A primary election by secret ballot in each chiefdom chooses its candidate for parliament, for the constituency headman, indvuna, and for the inkhundla committee, bucopho. The secondary election then takes place across the whole inkhundla between the chiefdom winners, and the candidate with most votes takes the seat.

The secret ballot is recent. Until the 1993 election, voters were not registered and filed through a gate marked for their candidate while officials counted them. The Encyclopedia of the Nations records that the 1998 election drew over 85,000 voters, about 40% of those eligible, amid boycott calls from PUDEMO and the Swaziland Youth Congress.

Freedom House doubts the impartiality of the machinery. It writes that the Elections and Boundaries Commission depends on the executive, its members appointed by the King on the advice of a Judicial Service Commission that he also appoints, and that chiefs vet candidates and have been accused of telling residents how to vote. At the September 2023 election, the ninth through the tinkhundla, two unregistered movements, Sive Siyinqaba and the Swaziland Liberation Movement, let their members stand as individuals while others boycotted. The African Union's observers called the vote peaceful and recommended a review of the laws keeping parties out.

Who chooses the prime minister and cabinet

Section 67 of the constitution has the King appoint the prime minister from among the members of the House, on the recommendation of the King's Advisory Council, and appoint ministers from both chambers on the prime minister's recommendation, with at least half of them elected members. A prime minister can be removed by the King for incompetence, or after a two-thirds vote of no confidence in the House. The prime minister chairs the cabinet and leads government business in parliament.

Freedom House describes the post as ostensibly the head of government with little power in practice, held mostly by members of the Dlamini clan. After the 2023 election the appointment was announced at the end of the Sibaya, the national gathering at which people put their views to the King and his advisers. The King's Advisory Council that recommends the prime minister is the Liqoqo, which section 231 constitutes from princes, chiefs and others appointed by the iNgwenyama. The constitution also leaves land with the iNgwenyama: section 211 vests all land other than private title-deed land in him "in trust for the Swazi Nation", as it vested on 12 April 1973.

Why parties cannot contest

The ban has two layers. Human Rights Watch's World Report 2022 recorded that the 1973 decree banning political parties remained in force, and Wikipedia's politics article dates a ban written into the constitution of 13 October 1978. The 2005 constitution guarantees freedom of association in section 25 and is silent on parties; Freedom House writes that there is no legal avenue for them to register and stand, and that parties seeking recognition have lost in court.

Parties exist anyway. Amnesty International's report for 2025 names the People's United Democratic Movement, PUDEMO, as the main banned opposition party and records that police halted a PUDEMO meeting in Manzini on 29 March 2025. Human Rights Watch names the Suppression of Terrorism Act of 2008 and the Sedition and Subversive Activities Act of 1938 as the laws used against critics. Two members of parliament who called in 2021 for an elected prime minister were convicted of terrorism and sedition in 2023, according to Freedom House, and sentenced in July 2024 to 25 and 18 years, according to Amnesty, which calls them prisoners of conscience. Freedom House reports that after the 2021 unrest the King rejected a dialogue facilitated by the Southern African Development Community before the 2023 election.

The government's own position is the constitution's: that representation through the tinkhundla on individual merit is democratic and participatory. Its critics, among them PUDEMO and the human rights organisations above, call for parties to be allowed to register and stand and for the prime minister to be elected. This catalogue records both and takes neither.

How the courts and the dual law work

Two systems of law run side by side. Human Rights Watch describes common law based on Roman-Dutch law operating alongside unwritten Swazi customary law, and Britannica notes that Swazi Law and Custom is recognised both in the constitution and by the courts. The constitution of 2005 set up a court system of magistrates' courts, a High Court and a Supreme Court, and Swazi or customary courts deal with minor offences under customary law. Wikipedia's account says judges are appointed by the King and are usually expatriates from South Africa. The constitution denies the High Court jurisdiction in matters touching the office of the iNgwenyama or the Ndlovukazi.

The police and the army answer to the King, who holds both commands under the constitution. The Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force has never fought abroad; Wikipedia gives about 3,000 personnel and the Encyclopedia of the Nations fewer than 3,000, and both describe it as used for border duties and internal security.

Who Eswatini stands with abroad

The country joined the United Nations on 24 September 1968, and is a member of the Commonwealth, the African Union, the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and the Southern African Customs Union, the last of which it shares with South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia. Wikipedia records that it is the only country in Africa that keeps diplomatic ties with Taiwan and not with the People's Republic of China.

Its neighbours have taken an interest in its politics. Human Rights Watch reports that in July 2021 the SADC organ on politics, defence and security sent two fact-finding missions, whose reports were not published. In 2025 the government accepted people deported from the United States who were not its nationals: Amnesty International counts 15 arrivals in July and October 2025, held without charge at Matsapha, and Wikipedia reports that the finance minister confirmed in October 2025 that the government had received $5.1 million from the United States under the agreement.