Among the 60 heads of state and government who gathered in Seville this week for the UN summit on international cooperation, one particularly attracted attention for the distinguished and luxurious treatment of his entourage: King Mswati III of Eswatini, Africa's last absolute monarch. He is the ruler of what until 2018 was known as Swaziland, a small country that occupies half the area of Catalonia, nestled between Mozambique and South Africa. Seven years ago, the monarch celebrated his 50th anniversary, the same year as independent Swaziland, by renaming the country back to its pre-colonial name: eSwatini, meaning 'the land of the Swazis', the country's majority ethnic group. "We were mistaken for Swiss abroad," Mswati explained at the time, a mistake that makes sense in English (Swaziland/Switzerland). on the verge of overthrowing this retrograde monarchy with a popular pro-democracy revoltThe monarch, who was recently strolling through Seville and staying at the city's most luxurious hotel, accompanied by one of his wives (who hasn't been known to visit the shopping malls and clothing stores), lives in a very different reality than that of his 1.3 million subjects: he earns an annual salary of $50 million, at $1.90 a day. Protests demanding democracy have been repeated in recent years, in a country where unemployment was at 35.4% in 2024, and youth unemployment was projected to rise to 48.7%. Mswati III also controls economic power, with investments in the country's largest companies.

The kingdom of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland and bordering the Republic of South Africa, is the last absolute monarchy in Africa. And for the past few days, the kingdom has been tottering. Last Monday, South African broadcaster SABC News announced that the all-powerful King Mswati III had fled the country after the violent outbreak of pro-democracy protests. These protests have been going on since May and have intensified in the last few days due to the population's suspicions about the flight of their monarch. The day after the publication of this information, however, the government denied it, and since then no image of the King has been published and his whereabouts are still unknown.