Friday, October 26, 2018

Swaziland King says angels told him who to appoint as new Prime Minister, but he won’t yet reveal the name


King Mswati III, the absolute monarch of Swaziland / Eswatini, told a meeting of the kingdom’s ‘People’s Parliament’ he had been visited by angels who told him who he should appoint as the kingdom’s new Prime Minister.
 
In the past the King has said he received messages directly from God.

He told his story at the Ludzidzini Royal Residence on Wednesday (24 October 2018) during a meeting of Sibaya. The Sibaya is where the King summons his 1.1 million subjects to the royal cattle byre to discuss pressing issues.

When he called Sibaya people expected he would reveal who he had chosen to be Prime Minister, following the recent national elections. 

Instead of revealing his choice the King said he had prayed hard for guidance and had been visited by angels. The Times of Swaziland reported he said, ‘The angels did eventually come and told me who it was.’

The Times added, ‘He said it became apparent as he was continuously in prayer that the angels and ancestors (tingilozi nemadloti) would appear to him and show him the right man for the job.

‘He said the angels and ancestors would show him the man who was given the authority to run the country.’

The said he would not reveal the name until at least Saturday (27 October 2018) after the Sibaya had given its views on who should be the PM.

King Mswati and his supporters have in the past said the King has a direct line to God.

In 2013, African Eye News Service reported King Mswati’s elder brother, Prince Masitsela Dlamini, said that God had given the royal family authority to rule over other Swazi clans. ‘The Dlaminis are closer to God,’ said Dlamini.

In 2011, the King said God spoke to him through a TV remote control. It happened at the Lozitha Palace, near Mbabane. At the time the King told his subjects about his ‘miraculous experience’.

The Times of Swaziland reported in October 2011, ‘His Majesty saw a miracle yesterday when he was preparing a sermon [to preach to a group of evangelical Christians.] The King said a remote control lay at the centre of a coffee table but something mysteriously brought it down.

‘He said there was no person or wind that could have brought it down.  The King said he realised that God was with him.  It was Him who brought the remote control down.’

In September 2013, the King told his subjects he had received a vision during a thunderstorm and was told that the political system in Swaziland that puts the King at the head and bans political parties should from then on be called ‘Monarchical Democracy.’

On 21 October 2009, the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by the King, told its readers King Mswati was ‘ordained by God to lead his people’. Musa Ndlangamandla, the Observer chief editor at the time, reported that Lutfo Dlamini, then Swaziland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, wrote a poem to the King that included the line, ‘You are living proof that Kings and Monarchs are ordained by God to lead his people’.

Following this, the most senior ‘traditionalist’ leader in Swaziland
Timothy Velabo Mtsetfwa was reported in the Observer saying ‘Royalty was a gift from God’. He said this while urging the Swazi nation ‘to respect the Royalty because it cares for the needy’. 

Mtsetfwa also spoke about how multi-parties which are banned in Swaziland, ‘were a monster to which many countries had succumbed and fell’. He then went on to say, ‘in other countries, especially those under multi-party democracy, the leaders only think of themselves and their immediate families and forget about the needy people’. 

Following the latest election on 21 September 2018 the King appointed six members of his own family to the House of Assembly and eight to the Senate.

The King rules as an absolute monarch and chooses the PM and government. People are only allowed to select 59 members of the House of Assembly; the King appoints a further 10. No members of the Swazi Senate are elected, the House of Assembly elects 20 and the King appoints 10.

See also

Swazi King’s private line to God

Fears over King’s mental health

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