Khan then makes the sobering conclusion that only a reformist strand could have revolutionary results.

We may not share the historical determinism that runs thick in the work of Jean-François Khan, but as a young country we should frame the discussion in a reformist strand, in particular our political economy two decades on.

I frame the discussion as one of political economy in view of the increasing, calculated or innocuous disconnect (depending on how you look at it) between our economic and political objectives (if at all we do have the latter in recent years).

As a country, in particular the ruling Swapo elite, we have good economic objectives as encapsulated in crucial directive documents such as vision 2030, NDP 3 to name but a few.

Importantly, our engagement with the world, amateurish as it appears at times - weak economic diplomacy, the Ramatex debacle etc - is based on lofty economic goals.

However, it is naïve to believe that we can divorce our economic objectives from political ends, and succeed in economic terms.

As a strategy, it is simply not sustainable and it is essential for us to understand the complexity of the State as an actor.

It is exactly why we need to return, perhaps constantly remind ourselves about the basics we set for ourselves at independence: we are a society founded on democratic principles and we need to defend them.

Essentially, what this would mean in practice is that the rule of law as implicitly enshrined in our Constitution ought to take primacy over short-term party political calculations.

The disconnect means that while we ought to defend our constitutional order and values in our foreign policy, we defend personal relationships with leaders: our timidity on Zimbabwe is a case in point.

It has also meant that while we need to defend the state against comrades who seek to undermine our constitutional values at party political rallies, we keep quiet in the name of party politics.

In essence, we have come to think of the ruling party as bigger than the State as no politician has come out in unqualified defence of the State and our stated democratic values.

The ruling party has a bigger responsibility to defend the democratic space.

Yet, this lack of interaction between politics and economics is what may explain why we might fail as a country.

We are an over-politicised country, laced with comrades who don't hesitate to frame every issue (minute as they appear) in party-political terms.

As a consequence, we have become a country going through a late identity political crisis.

The consequences of this late political identity crisis are too ghastly to contemplate.

And without being alarmist, the desperation with which comrades are conducting themselves at political rallies (even if these are isolated incidences) provide enough fodder for one to think that we are at the tipping point of becoming a failed state.

In fact, history has shown that it could take a singular incidence for a state to collapse, especially one where the foundations are moving.

The current political inertia explains in part why we are being left behind by some of our neighbouring countries, in particular Botswana.

Botswana is a country that has strong political leadership, and this has a positive impact on that country's economy.

The view should be emphasised that we are taking our position as a developmental state for granted, in particular one whose developmental process would be driven by democratic values.

I believe that many of the shortcomings when it comes to creating a fine mix between the political and the economic have to do with the absence of strategic and sustained political leadership.

Our economic objectives as encapsulated in the documents that I referred to earlier remain meaningless if the ruling party as a political movement is unable to translate its political power into a sound political process.

We need visionary political leadership for the consolidation of a national political culture that can be sustained for many years to come.

It would be feckless to think that we can succeed economically as a country while we seek to erode the democratic space.

This emerging and dangerous disconnect between our politics and economics could annihilate all the gains that we have made so far as a country.

This situation does perhaps suggest that we need political reformers to get the political process in line with our economic objectives.

* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Panthéon Sorbonne, France.

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