The Royal Palace announced that Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, planned to marry Noliqhwa Ntentensa at a ceremony next year when she will be 18. He will be 36.

Ntentensa was chosen by Mswati last year after he reviewed videotapes of semi-naked maidens taking part in the traditional Reed Dance ceremony, an annual homage to the queen mother.

Palace sources said Monday the engagement had been announced in part to clear the way for Mswati to choose even more fiancees at this year's Reed Dance next month.

"It is against custom for the king to go looking for new wives when a girl chosen at last year's Reed Dance is still unaccounted for," a palace source said.

Mswati's Reed Dance selections last year caused a stir when the mother of one of the three girls chosen to be Mswati's new brides went to court charging that her 18-year-old daughter had been kidnapped by the royal household.

The case sparked a showdown between the palace and Swaziland's judiciary, which Mswati's government eventually won by refusing to accept court jurisdiction over the king in a move critics say exposes Mswati's increasingly authoritarian streak.

The mother later dropped the kidnapping charges, saying her daughter was resigned to her fate.