Stop Degenerating Into Tribal Fests
By: Tsudao Gurirab
THE work of the three men appointed last year to constitute the delimitation commission must surely be drawing to a close. Their report is intended to influence the determination of (new) boundaries of constituencies and regions by President Pohamba and the government.
Those who profess to know the inside track of government’s thinking have already written the report of the Commission off, at worse as an elaborate public relations scam or at best one of going through the motions, as government has already made up its mind on the constituency and regional shape of things to come.
Be that be as it may, as part of carrying out its mandate, the commission decided on a series of public consultations in order to solicit the views of the common folk. The decision to conduct these public consultations was with the view to gauging how decisions to maintain the status quo or, alternatively to change borders will impact on the quality of governance at regional level.
From reports in the media, regions where local authorities are still sparsely developed have the notion that creating more and more constituencies will ‘bring the government closer’ to the people. This seems to be a popular perception in a huge region such as Kavango with only two local authorities.
It is our contention, however, that the real devolution of power in this and other un(der)developed regions is, ultimately, the extension of the writ of local authorities to the regions. The local authority speaks to the ‘modern, liberal democratic values’ intrinsic in Article 1 of our Constitution and is, therefore, a direct anti-thesis of the primeval, tribal order.
From what we have seen, the intended consultations with the povo have been usurped and hijacked by the agents of the state, particularly the governors in the regions. Contrary to the intent of the commission going out to listen to views of individuals, which would include those of governors, this noble initiative has now been turned into one where the governors convene meetings and present ‘regional views and consensus’.
This is uncommon and retrogressive. For, never before was there an attempt to muzzle the views of the common man, on a matter of this nature, in the present fashion. And to compound matters, communities and their leaders are up in arms in the event of the redrawing of regional and/or constituency boundaries.
The sole argument for this is that any redrawing of constituency and regional boundaries will amount to the loss of their tribal land. The root cause of this, of course, lies with the manner in which the regions and constituencies were drawn in 1992 following the report of the first delimitation commission. But for a few instances, the boundaries replicate the divisions drawn by the apartheid regime prior to independence.
Little wonder then, the tribesmen are up in arms over prospects of losing tribal land. From Caprivi, Kavango, through to Omusati and Kunene there is angst about loss of “their” land.
In Oshikoto (north of Oshivelo) tribesmen are campaign for a redrawing of borders to create essentially an Ondonga region. Yet the absence of similar agitation in say /Khomas, for example, should stand out as a monument of a new Namibia representing change and continuity – a constitutional dispensation that says it is our land, it is the land of all and every Namibian.
Only last week, leaders of “Traditional Authorities” meeting in Rundu were bemoaning the dilution of their powers in light of recent court cases reminding them of the supremacy of our republican order. They and others need to be reminded that our laws vest ownership of all land, except land under title, in the state.
It is also important to point out that customary laws are only valid to the extent that these are not in conflict with the Constitution or other statutory laws. So there is a clear hierarchy of laws with customary laws in the bottom drawer and the Constitution at the apex of our legal regime. An appreciation of this will help to clear up the recent defeats suffered at the hands of the courts of the land.
If the present delimitation commission can add any value it would be in making recommendations to redraw boundaries which for now speak to gerrymandering such as the case of Khomasdal North in the /Khomas region or the Arandis constituency in Erongo, for example. The arguments which have been made for increasing the number of constituencies for the most part, are based on conflating the functions of local and regional authorities and to that extent have no merit.
Local service delivery to communities is the remit of local authorities and the government, therefore, needs to roll out the programme to proclaim more areas as local authorities.
One of the tenets of representative democracy is that roughly the same number of constituents is served by a representative. The census figures recently announced should be of aid in this regard.