2 Emalangeni - Sobhuza II Diamond Jubilee

Sobhuza II's Diamond Jubilee in 1981 marked 60 years on the throne — a reign that began in 1921 when he was still a minor under British colonial administration. By the time this coin was struck, he had outlasted the protectorate, negotiated independence in 1968, and in 1973 unilaterally suspended the Westminster-style constitution his own government had accepted, ruling thereafter by royal decree. No other 20th-century monarch ruled a single territory longer. He died the following year, in August 1982, making this jubilee issue effectively his last commemorative.