{"id":10501,"date":"2013-09-19T16:28:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T16:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10501"},"modified":"2013-09-19T16:28:34","modified_gmt":"2013-09-19T16:28:34","slug":"swazi-king-to-wed-14th-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10501","title":{"rendered":"Swazi king to wed 14th wife"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"King<\/a>
King Mswati III of Swaziland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Swaziland’s King Mswati III has chosen an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant as his 14th wife, a palace spokesman said Tuesday, days before a much-criticised parliamentary vote.<\/p>\n

“I can confirm that the king has introduced to the nation a new liphovela (royal fiancee),” said Ludzidzini palace governor Timothy Mtetwa.<\/p>\n

Mswati, a 45-year-old who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, introduced Sindiswa Dlamini at a Reed Dance celebration over the weekend, Mtetwa told AFP.<\/p>\n

She wore red feathers on her head — a sign of royalty.<\/p>\n

The young woman graduated from Mbabane’s St. Francis High School last year and is a finalist in the Miss Cultural Heritage beauty pageant. The winner will be announced on September 28.<\/p>\n

The king has come under fire for his household’s lavish lifestyle while the tiny mountain kingdom’s 1.2 million people struggle to make a living.<\/p>\n

Mswati reportedly has a personal fortune of around $200 million (152 euros) and the UN estimates that 70 percent of his 1.2 million subjects live below the poverty line.<\/p>\n

He has steadfastly resisted reforms.<\/p>\n

The new engagement was announced at a festival which also counted regional delegates who will observe parliamentary elections on Friday.<\/p>\n

Critics have slammed the polls as a sham, partly because political parties are banned and candidates are hand-picked by traditional leaders.<\/p>\n

The weekend’s celebrations were a smaller repeat of last month’s official annual Reed Dance, where young virgins from across the kingdom gather and dance for the king.<\/p>\n

“It just happened that the international community was there to witness the event,” said Mtetwa.<\/p>\n

The wedding only takes place once the fiancee falls pregnant. Dlamini will then become Mswati’s 14th wife.<\/p>\n

The monarch’s colourful private life is off-limits in local media, but has drawn a lot of international interest.<\/p>\n

Three wives left the household in recent years. The latest, Queen LaGija, fled the palace in 2012 claiming years of physical and emotional abuse.<\/p>\n

Another queen, LaDube, was reportedly abused after she was caught in bed with the justice minister, a close friend of the king.<\/p>\n

Mswati had kidnapped and married the queen when she was 16 in 2005. – AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Swaziland’s King Mswati III has chosen an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant as his 14th wife, a palace spokesman said Tuesday, days before a much-criticised parliamentary vote. “I can confirm that the king has introduced to the nation a new liphovela (royal fiancee),” said Ludzidzini palace governor Timothy Mtetwa. Mswati, a 45-year-old who is sub-Saharan Africa’s … Continue reading “Swazi king to wed 14th wife”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[442,5104,6375,443,953],"class_list":["post-10501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-king-mswati-iii","tag-polygamy","tag-reed-dance","tag-swaziland","tag-wife"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/king_mswati_swaziland.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10503,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10501\/revisions\/10503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}