Political Situation in Swaziland

I know I may be a little bit more politically minded than many of you, so I'm warning you now that this isn't particularly relevant to my mission here. But I did make some vague references to the politics of Swaziland in my last post, and I think it might be interesting to a few of you at least.

Swaziland is the last true monarchy in Africa, and one of the few remaining in the world. The king not bound by anything, and has the final say in any real decision. He is basically the President except that there is no veto override, he appoints portions of the legislature, and he owns most of Swaziland's property and "holds in trust" many of its profitable public businesses.

As far as I can tell, the king is not oppressive. It seems like dissent is allowed, but is simply not popular. I'm sure there are some small abuses of power, but I have not noticed any of daily significance or egregious injustice. The main problem is that the government (legislature) doesn't have the authority to use most of the public funds, which are just the king's personal property. This has become a glaring problem with recent economic crises here, requiring a bailout from South Africa (SA). SA claims this will be the last bailout until reforms are made, and the IMF has long since cut off Swaziland until reforms are made.

So some of the protesters are demanding real democratic policies, maybe a sort of constitutional monarchy where the king's power is limited by the constitution and the people. Some students are angry because the University of Swaziland doesn't have the funds to open, and the students are demanding that the government pay to open it (the government pays university tuition here). Many civil servants are angry because the IMF has demanded that the government cut salaries in the civil service. For a while, the government had taken that off the table, but with SA and the IMF both demanding it, the government has reopened the possibility and many civil servants are angry.

The problems are really quite far-reaching. Unemployment is around 40% here, and 70% of the population is reliant on subsistence farming (someone should ask the CIA factbook how those numbers add up). I think most of the people feel frustrated, but don't have clear solutions to the problems. Everyone wants things to be better, and some people think it will be better if A, B, and C occur. I think there are certainly steps that should be taken, but I think it's going to be a long time and a lot of work before Swaziland's problems are resolved.

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-Ben