Swaziland's Queen Mother Ntfombi Tfwala only married King Mswati III's father King Sobhuza II after he had died, raising doubts as to the legitimacy of the present King's right to be monarch.
A new article in the National Geographic magazine says Tfwala had to marry the corpse of King Sobhuza II in attempt to ease King Mswati's path to the throne.
Jonathan W. Rosen writes in the magazine, 'When Sobhuza died in 1982, his most senior wife, Queen Dzeliwe, assumed the regency, though in a break with tradition the Liqoqo [the most important group of traditionalist leaders in Swaziland] soon had her dismissed, feeling threatened by a probe into corruption and a series of attempted reforms that had been initiated by Dzeliwe's prime minister. In her place the Liqoqo appointed Queen Ntfombi Tfwala, the mother of one of Sobhuza's younger sons, the 15-year-old Prince Makhosetive, who was summoned from boarding school in England and introduced as Swaziland's king-in-waiting. In April 1986, upon reaching his 18th birthday, Makhosetive was crowned King Mswati III [three years earlier than expected].'
Rosen continues, 'Although treated today as blasphemy, it's an open secret inside Swaziland that Ntfombi, who continues to hold the powerful post of queen mother, was never married to Sobhuza during his reign. She was a teenage maid in the house of one of his favorite wives, and was banished from the royal household when she became pregnant in 1967--a scenario recounted by Swazi elders to the civil liberties watchdog Freedom House and corroborated to me by multiple sources inside and outside of Swaziland. Sixteen years later, seeking to replace Queen Dzeliwe with a successor they could control, the ...
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