KING MSWATI III of Swaziland, Africa’s last absolute monarch, has hit back at mounting criticism of his extravagant lifestyle by banning all photographs of a growing fleet of luxury cars.

The British-educated king, who rules one of Africa’s poorest countries, arrived for the state opening of the rubber-stamp parliament last Friday in a new Mercedes S600 stretch limousine. Photographers were quickly warned by security guards not to take any pictures. Like the rest of his populace, they had expected the 36-year-old monarch to arrive in his £280,000 DaimlerChrysler Maybach 62 that he bought last December.

A royal decree subsequently published in The Times of Swaziland declared that it was no longer permissible to take pictures of his majesty “when he alights from his car”.

The purchase of the Maybach 62 prompted protests at his profligacy in a country enduring food shortages and the highest HIV/Aids infection rate in the world. Seventy per cent of the population lives in absolute poverty and unemployment is 40 per cent.

The king’s one million long-suffering subjects are already struggling to cope with his decision this month to take a 13th wife, a 17-year-old former beauty queen who dropped out of school to become a princess. Every new queen increases the demand on the public purse. So far the king — who was educated at Sherborne School in Dorset — has spent an estimated £8 million on building each wife a palace.

Although all opposition parties are banned, even parliament baulked last year when he said he wanted to spend £28 million on a private jet.

The plans were quietly dropped, but the incident has had little lasting effect on the king’s appetite for cars.

As well as the Maybach 62, the king announced two weeks ago that he was spending £450,000 — almost half the £1 million UK aid his kingdom received last year — on buying ten BMW 5 series for his wives.

Officially he has ten wives and three fiancées. In line with Swazi tradition, the fiancées become “wives” only after they fall pregnant. To the fury of Aids activists, who are trying to promote condom use and one-partner sexual relationships, the king has 24 children.

To pacify critics, he forbade sexual intercourse. A few days later he publicly admitted that he had broken his own law and fined himself one cow.

LAND WHERE LIFE IS SHORT AND POOR

• Swaziland recently surpassed Botswana as the country with the highest HIV/Aids infection rate, at almost 39 per cent of the population
• Swazi men have a life expectancy of 39 years and women only 35 years
• 40 per cent of the Swazi population lives below the poverty line
• In 2002 more than a quarter of the population needed emergency food aid
• King Mswati selects a new wife every September
• The last Swazi king, Sobhuza II, is estimated to have fathered 250 children

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