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Monarchy was the prevalent form of government in the history of Africa, where self-governing states, territories, or nations existed in which supreme power resided with an individual who was recognized as the head of state. Many such states exist today. All are similar in that the sovereign inherits their office and typically keeps it until their death or until their abdication.

However, only three are currently sovereign, while the remaining are sub-national monarchies. Two of the former are constitutional monarchies (Lesotho and Morocco), in which the sovereign is bound by laws and customs in the exercise of his or her powers, and one is an absolute monarchy (Eswatini), in which the sovereign rules without bounds. The sub-national monarchies are not sovereign and exist within larger political associations, such as the Ashanti of Ghana, Bini of Nigeria, and the Xhosa and Zulu of South Africa. In addition to these, there are also three dependencies of two European monarchies—Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha of the United Kingdom and the Canary Islands and Ceuta and Melilla of Spain.

History

Due to trans-Saharan trade, the early settlements of West Africa and the largely nomadic communities in North Africa had the capacity to support formal establishments and form states. Increased trade along the Nile Valley facilitated similar developments in East Africa. In response to this, authoritative leaderships developed to facilitate stable growth and interactions. An example is the emergence of the Sao civilisation as early as the 6th century BCE between the Bilma Oasis and Lake Chad.

Other monarchies were established with foreign intervention. One such intervention was by Rome in North Africa. The Kingdom of Numidia (in what is present-day Algeria) came to be established around 200 BC with Masinissa as the first king. He was one of the many kings who headed large indigenous communities in the North African coastal belt that engaged the trans-Saharan trade route for subsistence. With the tacit strategic support of Rome, Masinissa took control of all the nomadic communities and was crowned king.

Current monarchies

State	Type	Succession	Dynasty	Title	Monarch		Reigning since	First in line
Kingdom of Morocco	Constitutional	Hereditary	Alaouite	King (ملك)		Mohammed VI	23 July 1999	Heir apparent: Moulay Hassan, Crown Prince of Morocco (first born son)
Kingdom of Eswatini	Absolute	Hereditary and elective	Dlamini	King (Ngwenyama)		Mswati III	25 April 1986	None; king cannot appoint his successor.
Kingdom of Lesotho	Constitutional	Hereditary and elective	Moshesh	King (Morena)		Letsie III	7 February 1996	Heir apparent: Prince Lerotholi Seeiso (only son)

Sovereign states

Lesotho

Lesotho, an enclave of South Africa, is a constitutional elective monarchy. The current monarchy was established in 1824 when Moshoeshoe I, a tribal chieftain, united warring tribes into the Basotho kingdom. After his death in 1870, the kingdom was placed under the nominal control of the neighboring British Cape Colony; but, the native tribes engaged in a revolt, and full British control was not established until 1884 under the name Basutoland. While under British control, the monarchy continued under the title of Paramount Chief with a moderate degree of autonomy, particularly in the rural areas.

Formal independence was granted in 1966, and a constitutional monarchy was established. However, the democratically elected government was overthrown in 1970 by the Prime Minister in a self-coup. The monarchy was sidelined from then on, including a military government between 1986 and 1993, when democracy was restored. The current monarch, King Letsie III, ascended to the throne in 1996.

Under the current constitution, passed in 1993, the King is a constitutional monarch and the head of state, with power being exercised by the Parliament. While in practice hereditary, the King is officially appointed by the College of Chiefs using traditional practices. The College of Chiefs also appoints a regent if one is needed. The Prime Minister also has the power to declare the kingship vacant if the King either violates his oath of office or is deemed unfit to rule.

Morocco

Morocco, located in the northwestern corner of Africa, has a long and established history dating back to antiquity. Originally Carthaginian, the territory was controlled by the Roman Empire, the Vandals, and the Byzantine Empire before falling under Arab control in the seventh century. During that time, the inhabitants of Morocco were known as Moors. After the Reconquista in 1492, the Moroccan state underwent a long period of decline before falling under dual French and Spanish control in 1912. Independence was achieved in 1956, with Sultan Mohammed ben Youssef taking the title of King Mohammed V. The present King, Mohammed VI, ascended to the throne in 1999.

Under the current constitution passed in 2011, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, though the King maintains a fair amount of power. He is the chair of the Superior Council of the Ulema, charged with maintaining Moroccan Islam, as well as Morocco's Supreme Court. The King is also an active member of the cabinet of Morocco, having the power to dismiss ministers as well as set the government agenda. He also chairs the Security Council, which oversees the military.

Eswatini (formerly Swaziland)

Eswatini, in the southeastern corner of Africa, originated, like Lesotho, as a confederation of African tribes. However, it pre-dates Lesotho by approximately seventy-five years to the mid-eighteenth century. During that time period, Chief Ngwane III of the Swazi people moved his tribe to their present location and united with other African tribes. Beginning in the 1830s, British traders and the Boers (Dutch settlers) interacted with the Swazi tribe. Eventually, the illiterate Swazi unknowingly signed treaties which ceded their land to the Boer Republics, who assumed control in 1894. In 1902, after the Boer War, the British assumed control of Swaziland. It was not until 1967 that the Swazi regained control of internal affairs, and independence was gained the following year.

For most of the colonial period, the Swazi were ruled by Sobhuza II, who became king upon independence. In 1973, Sobhuza abolished the democratic constitution put in place at the time of independence and declared himself absolute ruler. Upon his death in 1982, Sobhuza had reigned for eighty-two years, the longest verified reign of any monarch. The present ruler, King Mswati III, ascended to the throne in 1986. A new constitution established in 1998 allowed for some degree of democratic rule; but, in practice, Eswatini remains an absolute monarchy, and the ability of citizens to participate in the political process is limited.

Dependencies of other sovereign states

Canary Islands

The Canary Islands are an archipelago of thirteen islands located off the coast of Morocco. The islands were originally inhabited by the Guanche people, but were colonized by Crown of Castile. During the fifteenth century, they were controlled by Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, but Spain regained control in 1479. Spain completed its conquest of the islands in 1496 and used them as a port of western exploration. Due to their importance to Spanish trade, they were frequently attacked by pirates and privateers such as Sir Francis Drake in 1595. The islands were granted autonomy in 1982.

As an autonomous community of Spain, the Canaries have a substantial degree of autonomy. The community government is organized as a parliamentary system with a President elected from amongst the members of Parliament. The community government has autonomy concerning a wide range of competencies, including over natural resources and tourism as well as a unique fiscal system. It shares power concerning agriculture and trade with the central government in Spain, and has the responsibility to oversee the implementation of actions taken by the central government in the competencies which the community government does not have autonomy. Each island also has a substantial degree of autonomy from the community government to control its own local affairs.

Ceuta and Melilla

Ceuta and Melilla are two cities on the northwestern coast of Africa bordering Morocco. Both were founded by the Carthaginians and later fell under successive Roman, Vandal, and Byzantine control before being conquered by the Arabs in the eighth century. Ceuta, in particular, served as the base for the Moorish conquest of Spain during that time period. In 1415, Ceuta was conquered by the Portuguese, with Melilla falling to the Spanish in 1497. When the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal united in 1580, Ceuta also came under Spanish control and has remained Spanish ever since. During the Spanish-Moroccan War, both cities gained additional territory to expand to the present boundaries. Autonomy was granted to both cities in 1995. Today, Morocco still claims that the two cities are part of Moroccan territory, which has created tension between the neighboring countries.

Both cities' governments are parliamentary in nature, with an additional mayor-council system acting as the executive power. The cities have a wide degree of autonomy, with responsibility vested in the central government only in areas concerning communication and trade affairs. They both have fiscal autonomy which allows them to tax residents in order to fund many of the city services such as police.

Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha

Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha is a British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean. Saint Helena was first discovered by a series of Portuguese explorers between 1602 and 1604. They built a number of structures upon it and began to use it as a way station, which was never considered a permanent settlement.

During the interregnum in England, the Honourable East India Company received a charter to govern the island from Oliver Cromwell. For close to two hundred years afterwards, Company rule was maintained by the British, only ending in the early 1800s when sovereignty passed directly to the British. Ascension island was added to the territory in the 1920s, and Tristan da Cunha was likewise added in the following decade. Presently, the territory is ruled by Charles III, King of Saint Helena, who is represented locally by a governor.

Sub-national monarchies

In addition to independent African monarchical states, a series of sub-national polities exist as constituencies of a number of the 52 remaining sovereign states of Africa. Traditional authority is vested in the monarchs of these constituencies by virtue of customary law as a general rule, although some of them also enjoy either a constitutional or a statutory recognition of their titles in the states that host them. Such figures as the Nigerian traditional rulers and the Zulu King of South Africa typify the class.

Former monarchies

Pre-colonial Africa

• Iron Age empires of North Africa
• Ancient Egyptian civilization
• Medieval (8th to 13th century) Islamic empires (caliphates) in North Africa
• the medieval Sahelian kingdoms
• Ethiopian Empire (abolished 1975)
• empires of the "transitional period" of the 15th to 19th centuries.
  • Islamic sultanates of the Sudan and the great Somali Empire (Golden Empire)
  • kingdoms of West Africa succeeding the Sahelian kingdoms
  • kingdoms of Central and Southern Africa such as the Kongo Kingdom and the Mutapa Empire.
• The Merina Kingdom of Madagascar.
• Kingdom of Rwanda (abolished 1961)
• Kingdom of Burundi (abolished 1966)

20th century

• Ankole (Uganda) (abolished 1967)
• Central African Empire (abolished 1979)
• Congo Free State (annexed by Belgium 1908)
• Kingdom of Egypt (abolished 1953)
• Kingdom of Libya (abolished 1969)
• Kingdom of Tunisia (abolished 1957)
• Sultanate of Zanzibar (abolished 1964)

Presidential monarchism

Many presidents in African have been characterised as "presidential monarchs", owing to their longevity. African presidents have used autocracy to perpetuate themselves in power, sometimes grooming a successor to preserve their regimes. Their leadership style was personalist and neopatrimonial, and they disregarded the separation of powers, facing little accountability. Other than Jean-Bédel Bokassa, few leaders have taken up the title of monarch despite it arguably being more fitting. By the turn of the 21st century, over 25 presidents had been in power for over 20 years, and Africa was home to 7 of the 10 longest serving presidents in the world.

While some Europeans claimed to have groomed their colonies for democracy, this was not the case, and the colonial project for Africa was clearly to “exploit the physical, human, and economic resources of Africa to benefit the colonising nation”, not to "export democracy" with liberal democratic constitutions hastily introduced in the last decade of colonialism. The colonial governor general was effectively an oppressive dictator, and this informed local nationalist leaders. Decolonisation, from around 1960 to 1980, saw colonial powers transfer authoritarian states to first-generation African leaders.

The new elite found multi-party state building challenging, and largely transitioned to one-party states. Francophone states in West Africa had already moved to one-party states prior to independence, with Ghana's Nkrumah copying this, establishing himself as president for life, later replicated by other English-speaking countries. The disenchantment of civilian politics led to various coups, an average of 25 per decade between 1960 and 2000, resulting in militaristic presidential monarchs alongside civilian ones. In the Cold War, the West propped up tyrants while the Soviet Union supported one-party Marxist-Leninist states.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 saw a wave of democratisation. The West implemented a new global neoliberal agenda tying World Bank and International Monetary Fund aid to compliance with multiparty elections and political freedoms. This achieved much popular support and various countries introduced multi-party constitutions, often crucially with two term limits despite indifference from Western countries. In light of this, some leaders attempted to circumvent them or negotiate third terms, sometimes successfully, while others abolished term limits entirely.

See also

• List of political parties in Africa by country
• Politics of Africa

References

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2. Mfonobong Nsehe. "The 5 Richest Kings In Africa - page 1". Forbes. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
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4. Fanso, V. G. (1989). Cameroon history for secondary schools and colleges (1st ed.). London: Macmillan. pp. 15–19. ISBN 978-0-333-47121-0.
5. John Middleton (1 June 2015). World Monarchies and Dynasties. Taylor & Francis. pp. 108–. ISBN 978-1-317-45157-0.
6. "Lesotho : Constitution and politics". The Commonwealth. 4 October 1966. Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
7. Maud, Sir John (1970). "Lesotho". World Book Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. Chicago: Field Enterprises. p. 180b.
8. "About Lesotho". Government of Lesotho. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
9. "Lesotho: History". Commonwealth of Nations. 2016. Archived from the original on 1 November 2017. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
10. "Constitution of Lesotho". Constitute. Constitute Project. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
11. Mather, Keith G. (1970). "Morocco". World Book Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. Chicago: Field Enterprises. pp. 668–669.
12. "Morocco". The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 2015. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
13. "Constitution of Morocco". Constitute. Constitute Project. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
14. Kuper, Hilda (1970). "Swaziland". World Book Encyclopedia. Vol. 17. Chicago: Field Enterprises. p. 815.
15. Saxon, Wolfgang (23 August 1982). "KING SOBHUZA OF SWAZILAND DIES; REIGNED 82 YEARS". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
16. "Swaziland: History". Commonwealth of Nations. 2016. Archived from the original on 18 March 2021. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
17. Martin, R.C. (1970). "Canary Islands". World Book Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. Field Enterprises. pp. 133–134.
18. "Canary Islands". The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.). Encyclopedia.com. 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2016.
19. Statute of Autonomy of the Canaries (Organic Law 10/1982) (in Spanish). 10 August 1982.
20. Pennell, C.R. (2004). "Ceuta". Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Encyclopedia.com.
21. Maddy-Weitzman, Bruce (2004). "Melilla". Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Encyclopedia.com.
22. Statute of Autonomy for the City of Ceuta (Organic Law 1/1995) (in Spanish). 14 March 1995.
23. Statute of Autonomy for the City of Melilla (Organic Law 2/1995) (in Spanish). 14 March 1995.
24. Kadi, Wadad; Shahin, Aram A. (2013). "Caliph, caliphate". The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought: 81–86.
25. "Ethiopia Ends 3,000 Year Monarchy", Milwaukee Sentinel, 22 March 1975, p. 3.; "Ethiopia ends old monarchy", The Day, 22 March 1975, p. 7.; Henc Van Maarseveen and Ger van der Tang, Written Constitutions: A Computerized Comparative Study (BRILL, 1978) p. 47.; The World Factbook 1987; Worldstatesmen.org – Ethiopia
26. ^ Awasom, Nicodemus Fru (2024), Awasom, Nicodemus Fru; Dlamini, Hlengiwe Portia (eds.), "Trends Towards Presidential Monarchism in Postindependence Africa", The Making, Unmaking and Remaking of Africa’s Independence and Post-Independence Constitutions, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 11–35, doi:10.1007/978-3-031-66808-1_2, ISBN 978-3-031-66808-1, retrieved 14 December 2024

External links

• Monarchs in Africa
• Lists of monarchies