Swazi king does it again
2004-06-21 20:17
Ludzidzini - Swazi King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch, has taken a new wife, bringing the number of official spouses to 11, a royal source said on Monday.
King Mswati III and 20-year-old Zena Mahlangu tied the knot last week at the traditional headquarters of the monarchy just outside the capital, Mbabane.
"The occasion started in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday and it dragged on until afternoon," said the source.
Zena Mahlangu's mother, Lindiwe Dlamini, had tried in vain to prevent the king from marrying her daughter after claiming that she had been abducted by two royal emissaries on October 18 2002.
Royalists managed to overrule the Swaziland High Court ruling that Zena should appear before it to say whether she was happy living in the royal household as one of the king's two fianceés.
Media reports later quoted Zena as saying she was happy living in the royal household, but her mother dismissed them as false.
Stuck to traditional political culture
Born on April 6 1968, only four months before Swaziland attained independence from Britain, the British-educated King Mswati is, like the country he rules, a mix of traditional African and modern Western influences.
While he has embraced Western-style market-driven economic policies, the king has adhered to traditional political culture, which allows him full control of the executive, judiciary and executive arms of government.
Like all the Swazi kings before him, he is a polygamist.
The monarch is being criticised increasingly for his lavish lifestyle while most of his subjects live in poverty and have to grapple with Aids, food shortages and severe drought.
The king recently attracted sweeping criticism for ordering new palaces worth $14m for his then 10 wives and two fianceés at a time when the country faced a deficit of about $145m.
His kingdom has suffered its fourth successive year of drought, combined with the serious problem of Aids, which affects about 38% of the adult population, according to the latest government figures.