THE Commonwealth is to rein in the excesses of Africa’s last absolute monarch, King Mswati III of Swaziland, whose antics include the selection of new wives from dancing displays and beauty pageants.

It is urging him to adopt a constitution leading to full parliamentary democracy within two years. European Union ambassadors to Swaziland are considering imposing economic sanctions to put him under pressure.

Mswati forced out Marwick Khumalo, the speaker of his advisory parliament, two weeks ago. He refused to open the parliament officially unless Khumalo went.

Khumalo had earned the king’s wrath by opposing his attempts to buy a private jet for $45m — twice the annual health budget of the poverty-stricken country in which 39% of adults have the Aids virus.

Mswati, 36, a former public schoolboy educated at Sherborne, Dorset, has used his autocratic powers to elevate his brothers in place of tribal chiefs, provoking two rebellions among his 1.1m subjects.

He overruled judicial decisions last year, causing appeal court judges to go into exile in protest and prompting the latest Commonwealth intervention led by Professor Ade Adefuye, a special envoy.

A new constitution, drafted in consultation with Commonwealth lawyers, is due to be implemented by January 2005.

A friend of Michael Jackson, the singer, Mswati has turned the royal palace into a disco venue, starring as resident DJ. He has acquired 11 wives, chosen from videos taped at the annual Reed Dance where up to 50,000 bare-breasted young women audition before him.

He has used the small Swazi army to quash revolts and to meddle in dress codes for schoolgirls.

In 2002 Lindiwe Dlamini, an outraged mother, took legal action against the king, accusing him of holding her teenage daughter as a prisoner in a royal guest house.

Senior Commonwealth officials confirmed that the king had been given a virtual ultimatum in 2002 when he visited London.

“You can reign for 50 years as a constitutional monarch and accept democracy. If you don’t, you’ll be out in 10 months,” the king was told.

The king’s extravagances include properties around the world, frequent royal travel with huge entourages and a pledge to build each new wife a palace at a total cost of $14m. He recently found his 12th wife, who was the runner-up for Miss Swaziland.

Commonwealth officials are upbeat at the prospect of democratic change. “He’s got to surrender power gradually — the idea is that by next year Swaziland will be 70% of the way to a western democratic model,” said one.

Reaction to the plan on the ground in Mbabane, the Swazi capital, was sceptical.

“It would be wonderful if it were true,” one resident said. “But we’ll believe it when we see it. It’s difficult to imagine that he will voluntarily give up his ability to misbehave so spectacularly.”

Mswati has been a regular at Jackson’s concerts and also managed to gatecrash some of the Prince of Wales’s engagements during his last royal trip to southern Africa.

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