In the latest instalment of my Monarchical Review, I would like to draw readers’ attention to four texts published in 2025–2026.
Victoria Melkisedeck Lihiru’s article “The absurdity of constitutional safeguards for women’s representation in Eswatini’s House of Assembly”, published in the “INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW” (Vol. 23, Issue 2, 2025), concerns the interesting issue of gender parity in the parliament existing in the absolute monarchy that is Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). It is worth noting the presence of a monarchical topic in one of the most important periodicals devoted to constitutional law in the world.
The Parliament of the Kingdom of Eswatini has a bicameral structure. The article under discussion focuses mainly on the House of Assembly, that is, the lower chamber. Its composition is not the result of one simple electoral mechanism. On the contrary – we are dealing here with a multi-layered structure. The core of the chamber consists of members elected in single-member constituencies whose boundaries correspond to units of the tinkhundla system. This is a distinctive electoral model characteristic of Eswatini, based on local communities and constituencies rather than on competition between political parties. Candidates are first selected at the local level and are then elected to the House as representatives of particular constituencies. To this group of elected members are then added members appointed by the King. The Constitution further provides that at least half of those appointed members are to be women. In addition, there is a third mechanism: if, after the elections and appointments have been completed, women still occupy less than 30% of the seats in the House, an additional compensatory procedure is activated, consisting in the selection of four more women – one from each region of the country – through a special indirect procedure. The Constitution therefore seeks to increase the presence of women in the lower chamber by means of three separate instruments: first, by allowing them to compete for seats in the ordinary constituencies; second, by obliging the King to take women into account when appointing part of the members of the chamber; third, by activating additional compensatory seats when women’s representation proves too low. Such a structure follows from the 2005 Constitution of Eswatini and from later implementing measures regulating the manner in which seats are filled, including “women’s” seats. Czytaj dalej
