Africa's last absolute monarch, Swaziland's King Mswati III

Swaziland’s King Mswati III has spent much of his 22 years on the throne acting as if he had all the world’s riches at his fingertips, not just the diminutive coffers of his tiny landlocked kingdom.

His estimated wealth of $100m may be half what it was last year – his two trust funds suffered in the financial crisis – but in a country where GDP per person averages $2,251, he is doing nicely.

Africa’s last “absolute monarch”, Sherborne-educated Mswati presides over a mongrel political system mixing traditional committees with a parliament. A democracy it isn’t: political parties are outlawed, and the king chooses the prime minister, a job he likes to keep in the (royal) family.

Once the world’s youngest monarch, the now eighth longest-serving leader in Africa keeps questionable company: he is a staunch supporter of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe.

In 2001 Mswati III married a 17-year-old – she is one of 13 wives – despite having just introduced a law banning sexual relations with girls under 18, intended to limit the spread of HIV/Aids (a third of women in Swaziland aged 15-49 have the disease). The king fined himself a cow for his libidinous transgression, but later reversed the law, days before nuptials with another underage wife.

In 2002 it emerged that development money intended for building factories and roads had been used to put a down payment on a $45m (£27.6m) luxury jet for the king, although five years and a legal struggle later the payment has been returned, to be spent on “social upliftment projects”.

Such extravagance has long raised the eyebrows and ire of his citizens, but last year saw the biggest ever protest against him, sparked by disgust at a lavish party he threw in September to celebrate his 40th birthday and 40 years of independence from British rule. The party’s official cost was $2.5m (£1.5m) but estimates put it at six times that. A few weeks later, 25,000 people marched in the country’s largest ever political rally. A few days afterwards, a bomb blast close to one of the king’s palaces killed two people. Instead of admitting the time was ripe for change, the king had Mario Masuku, leader of the most prominent (banned) opposition group, arrested. He has been in prison since November.

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