Swaziland: liberal democracy and its discontents
Swaziland's King Mswati III retains absolute power over the country [AFP] September 20 marked Swaziland’s last round of parliamentary elections. For the occasion, international media have brought Swaziland’s “forgotten crisis” back into the spotlight. Locked between South Africa and Mozambique, Swaziland is a small country with a population of 1.2 million and is one of the last surviving absolute monarchies in the planet. The kingdom is at the crossroads: 31 percent of Swazis are HIV-positive; a sovereign debt crisis is looming due to the public budget’s excessive reliance on fl...
Source: aljazeera.com