The king, the pawns, the same unfortunate box - Recent media

In a recent article in The Economist magazine titled, It’s Good to be King, the author asks why Zimbabwean leadership is being condemned worldwide while the Swazi king et al have escaped similar scrutiny. According to the article, Swaziland, the current rotating chair of the body dealing with peace and security for the Southern African Development Community (SADC), has banned political parties since 1973, while the Swazi king recently placed the opposition leader behind bars.

As readers of this blog (as well as Economist readers) know, Swaziland is hungry and poor. It leads the world in HIV prevalence (Botswana, where I currently live, is a close second). Though this blog for the most part avoids direct, bare-knuckle political commentary, the article linked above does not. It suggests that Swaziland’s leadership, beyond that demonstrated by HIV prevalence, is poor, and that the countries ailments are continually perpetuating by (and I am paraphrasing here) a monarchical milieu of polygamy, decadent royal spending, and, on substantial matters of governance and public health, careless inaction.

Here is the link again, in case you missed it.