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.Mario Masuko is a man who looks with envy at Zimbabwe. The former Barclays bank manager-turned-political leader lost his job for daring to suggest that the world's last absolute monarch, the British public school-educated "playboy king" Mswati III of Swaziland should allow his subjects to choose their government.
Since then, Masuko has been locked up for sedition and treason. His followers have been beaten and persecuted. And when Swazis elected a new parliament earlier this month, his People's United Democratic Movement (Pudemo), like all other political parties, was effectively banned from competing because the selection of candidates is closely controlled by the monarchy under the guise of preserving the country's culture.
"The situation in Zimbabwe is better, in that political parties are allowed," Masuko said. "The only challenge there is one despot - that people go to elections and then the despot annuls them. People in Swaziland can't even elect who they want. Instead we've got a king who treats this country and its people as his plaything. It's feudal."
The parallels between the two African tyrannies may be far from absolute, but the struggle for freedom in both countries is increasingly linked. South Africa's powerful trades union confederation, Cosatu, has described the two countries as "twins who are reversing our collective gains as a region by promoting undemocratic and oppressive practices against their own people".
It has announced plans to blockade the landlocked kingdom of about 1 million people as the first step in a rolling plan to increase pressure on Mswati to allow democratic government.
Clearly, however, the king is disturbed at being compared to Zimbabwe's despotic leader: after the head of Swaziland's trades union confederation, Jan Sithole, returned home from a Cosatu conference in South Africa last month to debate the parallels, he was interrogated by senior police officers. "They were absolutely obsessed with this link people were making between Mugabe and Mswati," he said.
Masuko said Mswati, who came to the throne in 1986, has doubly failed because he has not only resisted reform but also abused his power.
"Monarchs are extravagant. They tend to be dictatorial. This one in Swaziland is more than both of those things because it is an absolute monarchy," he said.
Swaziland has the highest HIV-infection rate in the world, a life expectancy of less than 35 years and extensive rural poverty. Nearly half the population is unemployed, and those with skills, such as nurses and teachers, often leave the country in search of work.
Yet the king spent the equivalent of half the national health budget to dispatch his 13 wives on a collective shopping trip to Dubai and Europe last month. The jaunt prompted Swazi protesters to coin the refrain: "We are dying while they are flying."
The government spent millions more on a lavish joint celebration this month to mark 40 years of Swaziland's independence from Britain and the king's 40th birthday. That helped bring out thousands of people in the largest anti-government protest for years. The government hesitated to crush it, however, because it coincided with an influx of foreign dignitaries - Mugabe among them - for the celebrations.
Swazis did get to vote earlier this month, but they elect only a parliament, not a government. That is appointed by the king, whose choice of prime minister always happens to be someone from his extended family, the Dlaminis.
While political parties are not specifically banned, the constitution says elections are based on the traditional system, called tinkhundla.
On the surface, tinkhundla is an exercise in local democracy; in practice, it is a reflection of the much broader grip of the monarchy and traditional chiefs - officially described as the footstalls of the king - over the everyday lives of people.
Candidates for election to parliament have to be approved by local chiefs, who use their powers to quash dissent. And the only issues permitted to be raised in campaigns are local ones, forestalling any debate about the competence of the government.
"Everybody belongs to a chief in a village," said Sithole. "If you don't allow your children to go to the highly politicised cultural activities held by your chief, you are risking a lot: risking eviction from your home [and] your children not getting a scholarship for tertiary education, even if they get straight A grades. The father of the children may lose his job. It's hard to resist that pressure.
"It's the same with the elections. They are so controlled by the chiefs, from the selection of candidates to the issues that can be discussed, that they are in no sense democratic."
Percy Simelane, the government press secretary, says Swaziland is an excellent democracy because the people have chosen not to allow political parties to compete in elections.
"The people argued that parties divided people more than united them. We are too small a country to have people divided. If there were multiparty, then parties would spring from every direction," he said.
Sithole and others seeking to change the Swazi system of government say that barely a peep has been heard from western governments that are vocal in their condemnation of Robert Mugabe.
"When the issue is black against black, it is thought
that it is cultural or traditional," he said.
"Our economy doesn't attract much from the big boys. In Zimbabwe,
there's a lot of land, a lot of resources. Also, there are black-and-white
problems where the current regime is disputing white ownership
of land."
The king's critics are cautious when asked what they think of him. Masuko hesitates, then says he is disappointed that a monarch who was educated at a British public school (Sherborne, in Dorset) did not return with more modern ideas on the role of royalty.
"By nature, in Africa the king likes to marry; he likes women; he likes authority. But was there any need for him to go to Sherborne college to have 13 wives? He could have said, 'This is the 21st century, with HIV/Aids, and I'm going to have only two wives.' People would have said, 'That's a monarch for the 21st century.' I don't think he's a 21st-century leader. I've met him personally, and I think he could do better."
But the opposition senses change is coming. In May, a coalition of pro-democracy interests including political parties, the unions and the churches, formed the Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF). It is overtly modelled on the South Africa's UDF, a coalition of similar groups that spearheaded internal resistance to apartheid in the 1980s.
Sithole said the SUDF was demanding immediate negotiations with the government on the establishment of a representative transitional administration, to last for about 18 months before multiparty elections.
"If there is no progress, we will escalate pressure, even calling for smart, targeted sanctions and government officials not being allowed to go to other countries and putting pressure on those who undermine the rights of the majority poor - as with Zimbabwe," he said.
"Absolute monarchies have disappeared in the world. The only way for monarchies to survive is for them to become constitutional monarchies. The king needs to negotiate and allow people to elect the government."
Simelane dismisses any parallel with Zimbabwe. "That's a gimmick of political imbeciles," he said. "You can't compare Swaziland to Zimbabwe. Look at our shops: there are things in them. Their [Zimbabwe's] inflation runs into the millions. It's out of ignorance."
"We have just been celebrating our successes. We've done very well, not only by Swazi standards. We have saved the world a lot of money by not having to send peacekeepers. They will never come here. We've not lost our sovereignty. We have developed.
"When the British people left us, they had not done much
for our development. At independence, we used to import teachers
from South Africa; today, we export them. Nurses, same story:
scattered all over the world."
