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Eswatini
Constitutional monarchy restored sovereignty.
- Independence
- September 6, 1968
- Before
- Swaziland
- Metropole
- United Kingdom
- Leader
- King Sobhuza II
- Transition
- Negotiated
- Movement
- Imbokodvo National Movement (royalist)
Protectorate and the Land Question
After the South African War, Swaziland became a British protectorate in 1903, and a 1907 partition under Resident Commissioner Robert Coryndon left roughly a third of the land to the Swazi nation, with the rest held as Crown and concession land. Sobhuza II, king from infancy in 1899, came of age and was crowned in 1921. He campaigned for decades to recover the alienated land, leading a delegation to London in the early 1920s and taking a test case to the Privy Council, which dismissed it in 1926.
A Monarchy Enters Party Politics
In the early 1960s modern parties emerged, notably the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress, founded in 1963 by Ambrose Zwane, which called for a constitutional state with limited royal power. Sobhuza and the Swazi National Council responded by forming the royalist Imbokodvo National Movement in 1964. Imbokodvo won the 1964 Legislative Council election and, in 1967, all 24 seats in the new House of Assembly, as Swaziland moved to internal self-government under a constitutional monarchy.
Independence and Royal Supremacy
Swaziland became independent on 6 September 1968 under a Westminster-style constitution, with Prince Makhosini Dlamini as prime minister. When the opposition NNLC won three seats in the 1972 election, Sobhuza repealed the constitution on 12 April 1973, dissolved parliament, banned political activity and assumed all powers of government, justifying the move as removing alien and divisive political practices incompatible with Swazi tradition.
Chronology
- 1903 — Swaziland becomes a British protectorate after the South African War
- 1907 — Land partition leaves roughly a third of the country to the Swazi nation
- 1921 — Sobhuza II crowned on reaching adulthood
- 1964 — Imbokodvo National Movement formed; wins the Legislative Council election
- 1967 — Imbokodvo wins all 24 House of Assembly seats; internal self-government
- September 6, 1968 — Independence
- April 12, 1973 — Sobhuza repeals the constitution and bans political parties
Aftermath
Sobhuza ruled by decree until his death on 21 August 1982; his reign, counted from his accession as an infant in 1899, was among the longest of any monarch on record. His son Mswati III was crowned in 1986 and in April 2018 renamed the country Eswatini.
Legacy
Swaziland reached independence under a monarchy that absorbed and then suppressed party politics. The 1973 proclamation set the pattern for royal supremacy, and parties still cannot contest elections; Eswatini is usually described as Africa's last absolute monarchy.