2003 Was A Wasted Opportunity For Swapo’s Politics Of Succession, But Now There Is Another Chance

I AM currently reading the ‘The Black Swan: The Impact of the highly Improbable’, by the incisive financial derivatives expert and provocative public intellectual Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in which he talks about random events whose impact tends to be huge, yet impossible to predict.

Similarly political crises can follow the Black Swan theory Taleb talks about; we may not know or predict their existence until such a time when we witness them. And like the random events whose impact is huge, political crises may generate different responses in different quarters. They could unleash competing forces, both reactionary and progressive. The reactionary approach suggests that we deny that there is a crisis and we continue with a business as usual approach. The progressive approach on the contrary infers that individuals identify the root causes of a problem and find appropriate solutions in order to avoid similar problems in future. In the main, the argument can be made that there are moments when organisations have to benefit from political crises or random events in order to effect a new frame of reference. A case in point: the internal crisis within Swapo in 2003 around succession, which led to the ultimate formation of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) in 2007, was an opportunity for the ruling party to rethink the politics of contradictory debates, and succession in particular. Instead, the option that the ruling party chose was rather reactionary in the sense that enemies where identified and crucified without a self-critical approach to how the party would avoid crises of this nature in future. After the handshakes, which signalled a salutary mature political ‘toenadering’ between the competing camps, we witnessed a clear case of ‘victor’s justice’. While the crisis of 2003 appears to have dissipated, it didn’t give rise to a new politics of hope and openness. Instead, with notable exceptions, it has given rise to insular politics of fear and suspicion, including the sitting head of state and his advisors. The verbal exchanges that we have seen ever since 2003 between various prominent individuals within Swapo is enough proof to suggest that the ruling party didn’t turn that crises into an opportunity. Nor was the formation of the RDP, which was a political tsunami, used as a vehicle for introspection. With the benefit of hindsight and given what we know now, the fate of Swapo was not determined by all these events, but how the ruling party turns uncertainty into opportunities may prove crucial in crafting a broad sustainable political strategy on succession. There are liberation movements, which failed their transformation in the post-colonial set-up, and the consequence has been their decline and ultimate collapse. So, when crises are not managed well, they leave space for uglier and devastating crises in the future. If 2003 was an internal crisis that went to waste Swapo is now sitting with another opportunity not to repeat the mistakes of 2003, including the schism that occurred in 2007 as a consequence of the succession debate. Thus, the earlier Swapo starts to talk about succession to a Pohamba presidency, the more predictable and less destabilising this debate becomes for the ruling party. Certainly, the real necessity of presidential and parliamentary elections later this year constrain thinking and a robust discussion about succession, but a progressive approach would be one that articulates and sets in motion the broad axis of a succession policy. The point should be emphasised that experience is usually a better guide to the future than hope, and the lessons of 2003 and beyond ought to have been internalised. So, Swapo must think beyond the elections and address the political imbalances that gave rise to a schism within what is supposed to be a broad ideological church.One way of navigating through the succession mud is not only through thinking the personalities or who should qualify i.e. an individual from the ‘top four’ – but to think how horizontal democracy can become a way of life within the ruling party. Using horizontal democracy as an entry point to succession, the ruling party possess enough historical tools. Swapo by its very nature has been a broad ensemble without any defined ideological outlook in a post-independence Namibia. But the debate about succession has tended to be centred excessively around personalities without thinking about the needs of not only the Party at a particular point in time, but more importantly, the needs of the country. The debate about succession to Pohamba should begin in earnest and horizontal democracy is an opportunity to fragment not only political power, but also to allow a ‘thousand flowers to bloom’. * Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Panthéon Sorbonne, France.