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Swaziland Goes to South Africa for Bailout

Swaziland has asked neighbouring South Africa for an emergency bailout to patch over a national cash crunch that has sparked rare political unrest against King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Swazi dissident groups have suggested Mswati, who has at least a dozen wives and an estimated personal fortune of $200 million, is looking for a 10 billion rand loan from Pretoria.

However, Deputy Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene told Reuters this was probably too high.

“I’m not sure where the 10 billion rand figure comes from and I don’t foresee assistance amounting to that much,” he said. “It is too early to put a figure to it until such time as the review and the assessment of Swaziland’s problems are done.”

The sums of money are a drop in the ocean for South Africa, far and away the continent’s biggest economy, but, in a curiously African echo of the euro zone debt crisis, Pretoria fears it may be simply the first of a series of bailouts for Swaziland.

Like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it will also balk at lending anything to the landlocked nation of 1.4 million people until its government takes the carving knife to what is Africa’s most bloated civil service.

The IMF said last month the tiny southern African country was near financial collapse, with a budget deficit of 14.3 percent of GDP – similar to Greece – and an economy stuck in the doldrums. Swaziland’s public wage bill amounts to 18 percent of GDP, more than any other country in Africa.

The IMF identified $87 million in immediate state spending cuts but described the general commitment to reform as “mixed”, rendering immediate budgetary assistance impossible for now.

“DICTATOR NEXT DOOR”

South African aid is also complicated by the loathing felt towards Mswati’s notoriously inept and unaccountable rule — cabinet posts are dished out on the whim of the king — by the ruling ANC’s allies in the unions.

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which accuses the ANC of being soft on the likes of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, will also use the crisis to weaken Mswati’s grip on power by, say, pushing for an end to his ban on political parties and dissent.

“South Africa must be very firm and say we want to see some action, and not just give the South African taxpayers’ money away when we are not happy with the fact that right next door we have a dictatorship,” DA finance spokesman Dion George said.

Swaziland’s fiscal troubles stem from a sharp decline in revenues from the regional Southern African Customs Union (SACU), which has historically accounted for two-thirds of the government’s budget.

The SACU drop-off, caused by a 2009 South African recession, is equivalent to 11 percent of Swazi output although the IMF says profligate state spending is just as much to blame.

So far, the government has just about managed to keep its head above water by eating into central bank reserves and running up $180 million in domestic arrears.

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Why the King of Swaziland Has Royal Wedding Invite But Not Obama

Richard Rooney, AllAfrica

King Mswati III, the despot of Swaziland, the tiny kingdom that relies on neighbouring South Africa for its economic and political existence, has been invited to next week’s British Royal Wedding.

Mswati, who is king to a tiny kingdom populated with about 1 million people (roughly one-seventh of the number who live in the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Area) will take 50 people with him to the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. He will stay at the Dorchester Hotel in London, where a room costs £450 (E5,000) a night.

So, why has he – a tin pot dictator from a land hardly anybody in Britain has heard of been invited?

The answer is that King Mswati personally hasn’t been invited, the monarch of Swaziland has. The British Royal Family are nothing if not snobs and they will invite only a certain ‘class’ of person to their weddings.

Heads of state who are not royals of Commonwealth nations are just too common. Hence Barack Obama, president of the United States has to watch the show on his television.

King Mswati makes the cut because all heads of state of Commonwealth countries who are Royals are invited.

I don’t for one moment think William or Kate have the slightest idea who King Mswati is, nor can they find Swaziland on the map. And they don’t know (or care?) that King Mswati and his state forces brutally attacked pro-democracy campaigners earlier this month and will do it again and again in the future if they are allowed to get away with it. He is simply ‘one of us’ so he must come to the wedding.

In Swaziland, the media have not yet reported that King Mswati is heading off to London. The rule in the kingdom is that they do not report on the king unless the king allows them to. Until an official announcement about the trip is made by the King’s Office, it doesn’t exist.reporter (author)

When the Swazi media do eventually get permission to tell King Mswati’s subjects he is off to London, they won’t report on the entourage of 50 who will go with him, nor will they mention the huge cost of the trip the poverty-stricken Swazis will have to pay for.

They are likely to say it is a great honour for King Mswati to be chosen and it shows the respect in which he is held on the international stage.

It won’t be true. The British Royal Family don’t know or care who King Mswati is but as long as he is a Royal he gets a ticket to the wedding.

Think of it this way: if the King of Swaziland was a goat, that goat would be on its way to London for the wedding.

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The Loud Silence on The Situation in Swaziland

Today marks the 38th anniversary when King Sobhuza II suspended Swaziland’s independence Constitution and banned the existence of political parties in the country’s political life. Labour unions, students and civil society organisations have planned what they hope to be the mother of all protests to mark the event. Inspired by the events in Tunisia and Egypt Swazis hope to achieve nothing less than the realisation of full democratic rights. The union’s much anticipated protest may however be interrupted by the government’s announcement that the anticipated protest is illegal and “anyone who (goes) ahead with the protests would be “dealt with in accordance with the laws of the country”. Reports of the arrests of union leaders and journalists earlier in the day are but a few of the examples that indicate what the Swazi regime is capable of.  It remains to be seen whether the people of Swaziland who have suffered for years at the hands of King Mswati III will finally have the courage to demand their long awaited liberation. It is again not clear what impact this attempt at demanding greater freedoms for the people will have on the politics of Swaziland generally. The jury is still out. Nevertheless, irrespective of how the protests turn out it is encouraging to see that Swazi people have not entirely lost the fighting spirit that recently helped the people of Tunisia and Egypt to remove their own dictators from power.

Swaziland is the last absolute monarchy in Southern Africa. If the country ever experienced some sort of democracy it must have been in the first five years after independence. By 1978 the then king had suspended the independence constitution, dissolved parliament, and had introduced the state of emergency. His argument was that the constitution and political parties were incompatible with Swaziland’s traditional practises and way of life. When the King died his son King Mswati III took over the throne at the age of 18 years and together with his advisors and the mighty royal Dlamini clans has ruled the country without any attempt to change the status quo.  In 2005 a new Constitution was approved by Swaziland’s Parliament to end the constitutional crisis created by the suspension of the independence constitution. However, the new Constitution vest powers in the hands of the monarchy, and King Mswati III still retain powers “to dissolve parliament and government, dismiss and appoint members of the judiciary and act as head of both police and army”.

King Mswati III known internationally for his flamboyant lifestyle and a great taste for expensive cars is together with his 13 wives accused of negligently using the public purse to maintain the royal family’s expensive standard of living. This happens in a country with the highest number of poor people and frightening statistics on HIV/AIDS. Without doubt Swaziland’s current situation demands that its people combine efforts in pushing away the frontiers of poverty while demanding greater freedoms from the Swazi regime. It is at times like these that serious questions need to be asked. What have the world done to help Swazi people?  While SADC sends delegations to Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast and recently Libya what has it done for Swaziland? SADC recently took a tough stance against Zimbabwe to the annoyance of President Robert Mugabe but its silence on Swaziland has been too loud. One can ask the same questions of the United Nations. There is simply world silence on Swaziland. The world has not only forgotten the plight of Swazi people, it has ignored and turned a blind eye to their situation. South Africa, the region’s economic hub has remained silent as well with only the unions highlighting the plight of Swazi people. South Africa’s painful past demands that it speaks out on what is happening in Swaziland. South Africa cannot fully enjoy its new democratic dispensation if its neighbours worship with impunity undemocratic practises which have no place in the modern era. South Africa and SADC needs to live up to their responsibilities in the region. Swazis have a role to play as it is they who can change their own circumstances. It is through a democratically elected and accountable government that Swazis can have their human dignity restored.

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