South Africa: How Is The Next Zulu king Decided?

SOUTH Africa’s biggest ethnic group, the Zulus, will on Thursday bid a final farewell to King Goodwill Zwelithini who died on Friday at the age of 72 after serving for half a century.

Under Zulu’s funeral rites, he should be interred by a few select men — an event the palace calls a “planting” of his remains rather than a burial.

But how is the next Zulu leader decided and what powers do they have?

The burial and funeral of Zulu monarchs have in the past been held in private and witnessed only by close family members.

And secrecy also shrouds the identity of Zwelithini’s successor.

Ordinarily, it would have been the eldest son born to the senior of his six wives, with whom he sired 28 children.

But his first son, Prince Lethukuthula Zulu, was killed aged 50 last November at his Johannesburg home.

It is a “complicating factor”