The Kingdom of Swaziland is a small kingdom in southern Africa, a landlocked state between South Africa and Mozambique and a British colony 1906-68. The country is named after the Swazis, a Bantu tribe.
According to extrareference, Swaziland’s landscapes range from mountains along the border with Mozambique over savannas in the east to rainforests in the northwest. Several rivers run through the country, including the Lusutfu River. With its 50,000 residents, the capital Mbabane is the country’s largest city; other cities are Manzini, Lobamba and Siteki.
Swaziland has the world’s lowest average life expectancy of 31.99 years.
The king is head of state, and it has been Mswati 3 since 1986. Traditionally, the king rules with his mother, Indlovukazi (meaning the Great Female Elephant). The king is the administrative head of state, while his mother is the religious and national head of state. In his capacity as monarch, the king appoints not only the prime minister, who is the head of government, but also a small number of representatives to both chambers of Libandlas (parliament). The Senate consists of 30 members, while the House of Assembly has 65 seats, 55 of which are elected in November for five years.
King Mswati III is often criticized for his extravagant lifestyle in a country with one of the highest levels of HIV infection in the world. His fleet of luxury cars and the millions he spends on modernizing his countless wives’ luxury homes stand in contrast to the roughly 34 percent of the country’s unemployed, nearly 70 percent of whom live on less than a US dollar a day, and where about 39 percent of all adults are infected with HIV.
Cultural objects from more than 200,000 years ago have been found in Swaziland. The earliest residents of the area were Khoisan hunters and gatherers. It was predominantly replaced by Bantu tribes during the Bantu migration.
TIMELINE:
4th century – Evidence of farming and use of iron is dated to around this time.
1899-1902 – After the Second Boer War, Swaziland became a British protectorate.
1968 – On September 6, the country gained its independence. Since then, Swaziland has had a power struggle between pro-democracy activists and a totalitarian monarchy.
1973 – Sobhuza II abolishes the Constitution in favor of a traditionalist system, and he ruled almost autocrat until his death in 1982.
1986 – After an intriguing interregnum, 18-year-old Mswati III is crowned.
2001 – King Mswati III appoints a committee to draft a new constitution. Drafts were published in May 2003 and November 2004, but they were heavily criticized by civil society organizations and civil rights organizations abroad.
2002 – More than a quarter of the population was in need of food aid due to drought, and more than a third of the adult population was infected with HIV.
2004 – Swaziland recognizes for the first time that it has one of the highest AIDS rates in the world. Prime Minister Themba Dlamini has declared a humanitarian crisis due to the combination of drought and soil degradation, rising poverty and HIV / AIDS. UN Special Envoy Stephen Lewis has stated that ” Swaziland stands alone with the world’s highest HIV transmission since neighboring Botswana has made progress in the fight against the deadly pandemic.”
