Swazis Strike for Democracy

Some 5,000 demonstrators gathered amid tight security in the capital Mbabane to press their grievances against King Mswati III's sweeping powers -- as well as economic issues like plans to tax pensions.

"The government of the day does not have the interests of the nation at heart," said the general secretary of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions, Jan Sithole. "This is a struggle for everyone. Even those who are not taking part in this will eventually become involved."

Sithole said the trade union movement would stage two-day stoppages ever other month until Mswati agrees to multiparty elections in October 2008.

Swaziland has been has been ruled by royal decree since the declaration of a state of emergency in 1973. Mswati has come in for criticism of his lavish spending and love of luxury cars and fine palaces for his 13 wives in a country where an estimated 70 percent live in poverty.

Sithole criticized the fact that the king was recently given a gift of heifers at taxpayers' expense, while people in rural areas went hungry.

Swaziland, a largely agricultural country, is regularly battered by drought and crop failure, worsened by one of the world's highest AIDS rates.

Authorities gave Thursday's demonstration the go-ahead and there were only minor skirmishes.

Transport, essential services and government offices kept going -- unlike a similar pro-democracy strike in 1996. But Sithole said the union movement would step up the industrial action if need be in future.

Swaziland has come in for regular criticism from human rights bodies for its lack of political freedoms. A constitution adopted last year did not provide for political parties, despite demands by the pro-democracy movement that the opposition should finally be given a say in national life.