Free And Fair Should Be The Spirit

FOR Namibia’s Attorney General, Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, to accuse the media of incitement is plainly without basis, and cannot be allowed to divert attention from the fact that Swapo, most notably its President, who is also Head of State, Hifikepunye Pohamba, should be behaving in a manner in keeping with our democracy and calling on party members and supporters to do the same.

Iivula-Ithana, also the country’s Minister of Justice and Swapo Secretary General, held a press conference yesterday, dismissing allegations of Swapo intimidation of supporters of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), instead placing the blame squarely at the door of the media. “I find it very unpatriotic, inciteful and in fact treacherous to encourage violence in the country when the media go out of its [sic] way to publicise inflammatory untruth(s) and politically motivated allegations of intimidation or violence where such did not happen”, she said.Iivula-Ithana is not only missing the point, but she is also refusing to address it, and other top Swapo leaders, including the President, are consistently in denial about their own words and actions which are giving rise to the tensions which risk jeopardising the stability of this country.This newspaper, as is by this time well known, is strongly independent in its editorial stance, and therefore not partisan to any political party or group, which includes both Swapo and the RDP, in its reporting.But there can be no denial that since the formation of the RDP, Swapo leaders have come out with guns blazing in their antipathy towards the new party.This is not a figment of media imagination, nor a skewed representation of the truth.It is a fact.While the RDP leaders have also not necessarily always chosen their words wisely or well, they are nevertheless rank amateurs when compared to the level of vitriol that has emanated from most senior Swapo leadership, and even our Head of State.Let us be brutally frank: when the President lashes out at the RDP, referring to it as a ‘Judas’; when other Swapo leaders on the same platform call for the denial of access to water to perceived or real RDP supporters; when they exhort Namibians to boycott RDP businesses or not to award tenders to RDP supporters, war has been declared.This does not represent a spirit of democratic campaigning.It is intimidation, plain and simple.The estimated 1 600 voters of Omuthiya have a number of choices as to which party to vote for in their local authority election and they include Swapo, RDP, DTA and CoD.Those voters should be free to exercise their choice without any fear of intimidation from whatever quarter or whichever party.And the onus is on Swapo, as the ruling party, to conduct a clean campaign.They have absolutely no right to threaten citizens with retribution should they choose to vote for another party.In addition to which, Namibians have the right to a secret ballot, even when their political sentiments may be obvious.What is notably absent from the statements of leading Swapo figures, from the Prime Minister to the President and the Attorney General, is an appeal to their support base for restraint.All they appear capable of, under the circumstances, when it is a known fact that Swapo has the knives out for the RDP (we trust purely in the figurative sense!), is to report incidents of intimidation and violence to the Police instead of directly instructing their supporters to refrain from harassment of any kind.Iivula-Ithana yesterday told her press conference that two out of the (several) incidents listed were not the work of her party: “My appeal to the public is that we remain calm and avoid any provocation and any incident of intimidation or violence must be reported to the Police”.This is all well and good, but fails to address the root cause of the negative atmosphere that is pervasive, particularly in northern Namibia, right now.The media do have a role to play, and a responsible one at that.But we are on record in several editorials of this newspaper calling for calm and restraint, where Swapo and Government have failed to speak.We hope that Swapo, and more particularly President Pohamba, will in the future exercise some long-awaited leadership and instead of threatening supporters of the RDP, tell all the people of the area in question that they have the right to vote for whatever party they wish and assure them that there will be no consequences should their preferences become known.”I find it very unpatriotic, inciteful and in fact treacherous to encourage violence in the country when the media go out of its [sic] way to publicise inflammatory untruth(s) and politically motivated allegations of intimidation or violence where such did not happen”, she said.Iivula-Ithana is not only missing the point, but she is also refusing to address it, and other top Swapo leaders, including the President, are consistently in denial about their own words and actions which are giving rise to the tensions which risk jeopardising the stability of this country.This newspaper, as is by this time well known, is strongly independent in its editorial stance, and therefore not partisan to any political party or group, which includes both Swapo and the RDP, in its reporting.But there can be no denial that since the formation of the RDP, Swapo leaders have come out with guns blazing in their antipathy towards the new party.This is not a figment of media imagination, nor a skewed representation of the truth.It is a fact.While the RDP leaders have also not necessarily always chosen their words wisely or well, they are nevertheless rank amateurs when compared to the level of vitriol that has emanated from most senior Swapo leadership, and even our Head of State.Let us be brutally frank: when the President lashes out at the RDP, referring to it as a ‘Judas’; when other Swapo leaders on the same platform call for the denial of access to water to perceived or real RDP supporters; when they exhort Namibians to boycott RDP businesses or not to award tenders to RDP supporters, war has been declared.This does not represent a spirit of democratic campaigning.It is intimidation, plain and simple.The estimated 1 600 voters of Omuthiya have a number of choices as to which party to vote for in their local authority election and they include Swapo, RDP, DTA and CoD.Those voters should be free to exercise their choice without any fear of intimidation from whatever quarter or whichever party.And the onus is on Swapo, as the ruling party, to conduct a clean campaign.They have absolutely no right to threaten citizens with retribution should they choose to vote for another party.In addition to which, Namibians have the right to a secret ballot, even when their political sentiments may be obvious.What is notably absent from the statements of leading Swapo figures, from the Prime Minister to the President and the Attorney General, is an appeal to their support base for restraint.All they appear capable of, under the circumstances, when it is a known fact that Swapo has the knives out for the RDP (we trust purely in the figurative sense!), is to report incidents of intimidation and violence to the Police instead of directly instructing their supporters to refrain from harassment of any kind.Iivula-Ithana yesterday told her press conference that two out of the (several) incidents listed were not the work of her party: “My appeal to the public is that we remain calm and avoid any provocation and any incident of intimidation or violence must be reported to the Police”.This is all well and good, but fails to address the root cause of the negative atmosphere that is pervasive, particularly in northern Namibia, right now.The media do have a role to play, and a responsible one at that.But we are on record in several editorials of this newspaper calling for calm and restraint, where Swapo and Government have failed to speak.We hope that Swapo, and more particularly President Pohamba, will in the future exercise some long-awaited leadership and instead of threatening supporters of the RDP, tell all the people of the area in question that they have the right to vote for whatever party they wish and assure them that there will be no consequences should their preferences become known.