eSwatini princess gets information portfolio in new government

pulse

November 3, 2018 5:36 PM

Princess Sikhanyiso Dlamini of eSwatini (pictured October 2015) will run the Information, Communications and Technology portfolio

The newly appointed prime minister of eSwatini has named the 31-year-old daughter of King Mswati III as information minister weeks after the small kingdom held largely symbolic elections.

Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini, who took office last weekend, on Friday unveiled his 19-member cabinet which includes Princess Sikhanyiso Dlamini who will run the Information, Communications and Technology portfolio.

The ministry oversees the media and controls the issuance of broadcasting and print licences.

Educated in England and the US and the holder of a masters degree in digital communications from Sydney University, she also sits on her father's powerful advisory council on political and economic matters.

The princess, the king's firstborn and a part-time rap musician, also sits on the board of the country's telecoms giant and leading mobile operator MTN, in which the king owns a 10 percent stake.

The role of head of government is extremely limited in eSwatini -- a poor landlocked nation of 1.3 million residents wedged between South Africa and Mozambique.

The king anoints ministers and controls parliament.

Without warning in April, Mswati III -- one of the world's last absolute rulers -- marked 50 years since his country's independence from British colonial rule by announcing that it would now be known as eSwatini ("land of the Swazis").

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