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Monarchs from around
Monarchies that matter
It’s the moment he always knew would come. Eight months after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III will be crowned at a coronation ceremony on May 6 – though he did officially become king at the time of her death. (And who could forget his first royal row with … a pen!)
It’s been hard to escape the spectacle of this event, Britain’s first coronation in 70 years. Some 2,200 people are expected to attend the ceremony at Westminster Abbey, while the broader three-day extravaganza will cost British taxpayers at least £100 million ($125 million) amid a painful cost-of-living crunch.
But for all the displays of pageantry to celebrate a king who most Brits feel little more than indifferent toward, the role of the British royal family is mostly symbolic, and the monarch’s powers are extremely limited.
Queen Elizabeth II, for her part, skillfully stayed above the fray of party politics during her seven decades on the throne. That will now be her son’s challenge. Still, when push comes to shove, power remains concentrated in the hands of Britain’s political class.
The same can’t be said, however, of other monarchies around the world that yield enormous power at home and abroad. Here are some of them.
Saudi Arabia: The buck stops with MBS
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, meaning that the king, who heads the House of Saud (royal family) also serves as or chooses the prime minister. Since the modern Saudi state was established in 1932, successive kings have amassed vast power, steering the oil-rich state’s domestic and foreign policies.
To be sure, a 150-person Consultative Assembly, tapped by the king and known as the Shura Council, is meant to serve as an advisory policy body, which includes the mandate of drafting legislation. In practice, however, the buck traditionally stops with the head of the monarchy.
Still, the royal who has yielded the most power in modern Saudi history is not actually a king. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS), the seventh son of King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, 87, has been the de facto leader of the petrostate for some six years, overseeing key portfolios, such as the economy, defense, and foreign policy.
And MBS is making big moves. At home, he oversaw a sweeping anti-corruption drive in 2017 that purged dozens of Saudi elites, while also reversing a ban on female drivers as part of the kingdom’s bid to diversify and modernize the Saudi economy.
Meanwhile, MBS – widely believed to have orchestrated the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi – has embarked on a combative foreign policy trajectory, including launching a war against Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen that’s turned into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Crucially, he also calls the shots over the Saudis' global energy policy, which has put him on a collision course with the Biden administration after he rebuffed Washington’s request to increase oil output to offset price increases caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Thailand: The king isn’t messing around
Officially, Thailand – an absolute monarchy until 1932 – has a constitutional monarchy, meaning that the king should be removed from day-to-day politics. But throughout decades of political turmoil in the country, the monarchy has used oppressive tactics to amass unrivaled power over politics and society.
During his tenure, King Bhumibol (1950-2016) served as the final mediator of Thailand’s many coups d'état. The military has only gotten more beholden to the monarchy in recent years after King Vajiralongkorn, who assumed the throne after his father died in 2016, gave his blessing to current PM Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former general who seized power in a coup in 2014.
What’s more, Thailand has some of the world’s most draconian royal defamation laws, which sets out prison terms of up to 15 years for those who defame members of the royal family. Consider that in 2021, a former civil servant was given a 43-year sentence for criticizing the king on social media.
The monarch’s iron-fisted reign sparked one of the largest youth-led protest movements in Thai history in 2020 – with protesters flashing a three-finger salute of youth resistance popularized by the “Hunger Games” franchise.
On May 14, Thailand heads to the polls for the first time since those protesters rocked the country and dared to ask a long-taboo question: How much political power should the king have?
Eswatini: Africa’s last absolute monarchy
King Mswati III has ruled the landlocked African country of 1.1 million with an iron fist since he assumed the throne in 1986 at age 18 after his father, King Sobhuza II, died. (Fun fact: Mswati was the youngest of his father’s known 68 sons.)
While some members of parliament are elected by popular vote, political parties are banned from participating in elections in Eswatini, and the cabinet is appointed by the king.
The king, referred to as Ngwenyama, meaning “lion” in the Siswati language, yields complete power and tolerates no dissent. Consider that in 2018, Mswati decided on a whim to change the country’s name from Swaziland to Eswatini – and that was that.
And while he lives a life of luxury, most of the population lives in poverty. After years of economic ruin, around one-third of all Eswatinis are unemployed – while the country has the world's highest HIV rate for 15-49-year-olds.
The brutal killing of a student at the hands of Mswati's security forces in 2021 gave rise to rare anti-royal protests in the country that left dozens dead after Mswati ordered security forces to fire at protesters.
In Eswatini, speaking out against the king is literally a matter of life and death.
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What We're Watching & What We're Ignoring
WHAT WE'RE WATCHING
Fresh violence in Kashmir – A suicide attack yesterday on a convoy carrying Indian police officers in Indian-administered northern state of Jammu and Kashmir has killed at least 42 people. The attack by the Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed is the deadliest local attack in decades and could spark a fresh cycle of violence between India and Pakistan, who both claim the region is rightfully theirs. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi quickly pledged to retaliate, and the Indian response could include cross-border shelling or even a more daring surgical strike against militants in Pakistan. More broadly, prospects for a lasting peace agreement in Jammu and Kashmir – once believed to be more likely with the election of Imran Khan in Pakistan last year – now seem more distant again.
Donald Trump's veto pen – The House of Representatives voted this week to cut most US funding for Saudi Arabia's military operations in Yemen, setting up a potential showdown with President Trump. The resolution now moves to the Senate, which passed a similar measure last year after the Saudi government's murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi drew attention to the kingdom's destructive involvement in Yemen's civil war and resulting humanitarian crisis. If the Senate gives the green light, President Trump will have to decide whether to use the first veto of his presidency in order to protect Washington's long-standing but controversial relationship with Riyadh.
WHAT WE'RE IGNORING
The end of "The Philippines" – The famously blunt-spoken Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte wants to scrap his country's current name in favor of "Maharlika," a term that refers to the warrior class that ruled the islands before Spanish King Felipe II's explorers colonized the islands and named them for him (Felipe -> Filipinas = mind blown). The nationalistic name change idea isn't new. In the 1980s, Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whom Duterte admires, pushed the idea. But we are ignoring it because polls in the past have shown little popular interest in the idea. Plus, it takes a lot for a name change to stick. We haven't heard any one calling Czech Republic "Czechia", eSwatiniis still Swaziland to most, and you are definitely a sucker out-of-towner if you refer to New York's Triboro Bridge as "RFK Bridge."
Israeli translation corrections – Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu caused a stir when he told a reporter that the Middle East peace conference he was attending in Poland was actually about forming a coalition to go to war with Iran. While his office quickly softened the official translation afterwards, it appears that Bibi really did say "war." Given that Bibi has always been extremely, and even comically, hawkish on Iran, we are ignoring the revised translation