General elections were held in

Eswatini Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where i ...

on 18 August and 21 September 2018.Election dates revealed
Times of Swaziland

Electoral system

The

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible g ...

consists of 59 elected seats and up to ten chosen by the

Ngwenyama iNgwenyama (, pl. ''tiNgewnyama'', also ''Ingwenyama'' or ''Inkosi'') is the title of the male List of monarchs of Eswatini, monarch of Eswatini. In English, the title is sometimes translated as King of Eswatini. The iNgwenyama reigns together ...

. The 59 elected members are elected in a two-round system. A primary election is held in each of the 385 chiefdoms to choose a candidate for the secondary election, with between three and twenty candidates in each chiefdom. In the secondary election, the country is divided into 59 constituencies (increased from 55 in the 2013 elections); each winner of the primary election then stands in the constituency that covers their chiefdom.Swaziland: Primary and Secondary Elections: 24 August – 20 September 2013: Final Report
Election Experts Mission Both rounds operate on a

first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

basis, with all candidates running as independents.

Nominations

Prior to the general election, candidates are nominated at the

tinkhundla In Eswatini, an inkhundla (; plural: tinkhundla) is an administrative subdivision smaller than a district but larger than an umphakatsi (or "chiefdom"). There are 55 tinkhundla in Eswatini: 14 in Hhohho District, 11 in Lubombo District, 16 in ...

level. Each of the 55 tinkhundla nominates between three and twenty candidates, who must have the backing of ten members of the community. A total of 6,204 people were nominated; 4,717 male and 1,487 female. 26% of candidates were below the age of 36, 63% were between 36 and 60, and 11% were over 60.

Primary election

The primary round took place on 24 August 2018, with 156,973 Swazis casting a vote out of a total of 544,310 registered voters, resulting in a 28.83% turnout. These numbers, which suggested a low confidence in the electoral process in the country, were later removed from the Electoral Commission website.Swaziland: Results of Swaziland Election Not Published One Month After Poll Questioning Kingdom's Claim to Democracy
/ref> They were briefly online as an annexure to a report released in November 2020.

Secondary election

The electoral commission revealed the name of the 59 winners of the secondary election, yet without divulging any numbers of votes being cast for the candidates or in total. In 2013, these results had never been made public. Following the election, King Mswati appointed six members of the royal family to the House of Assembly and eight to the Senate. The results were revealed in the National Elections Report 2018.

Results

The results of the secondary election were revealed in the National Elections Report 2018.

Hhohho Region Hhohho is a region of Eswatini, located in the north western part of the country. Hhohho was named after the capital of King Mswati II, who expanded the Swazi territory to the north and west, taking in the districts of Barberton, Nelspruit, Ca ...

References

{{Swazi elections

Elections in Eswatini

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

Non-partisan elections