Namibia Post-Swapo

SHAUN WHITTAKER, HARRY BOESAK and MITCHELL VAN WYK’With Swapo discredited and the non-existence of an organised left wing, the country has moved into a dangerous transitional phase.’NAMIBIA HELD presidential and National Assembly elections on 27 November 2019, and once again used the electronic voting machines (EVMs) without a paper trail to verify the results.

So the election lacked transparency, and the credibility of the outcome is in real doubt.

If it is considered that top Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) officials are all Swapo supporters, with some of them beyond term limit at that body, then there are further reservations about the verdict. In fact, during the 2017 congress, Swapo leaders themselves refused employing these very same machines.

Furthermore, it took the ECN three days to announce the final results, but with seven (7) constituencies not made known. These constituencies included 60 000 voters out of a total voter turnout of 800 000 and are of significance. The conclusion from one of these districts (Windhoek Rural) was eventually pronounced and in fact showed compelling discrepancies.

Noteworthy with the elections was that outcomes of constituencies (e.g. Windhoek West and Windhoek East) where Swapo lost by a large margin were only made public very late. And, like in 2014, the same computer expert, who is an active Swapo branch secretary, was the key person coordinating activities behind the scenes.

Figures released by the ECN revealed that Swapo had lost heavy support in urban areas such as Windhoek and Walvis Bay. The working class at Walvis Bay, in particular, has a history of radicalism as was witnessed during the 1971 general strike. That radicalism has continued with the recent march against marine phosphate mining and the current protests there against job losses due to the enormous corruption in the fishing industry.

The fishing workers could be the spark that gets the entire working class into action again to organise for their interests. In the context of an economic depression and mass unemployment, the political climate is ripe for such mobilisation.

Overall, if the official verdict of the elections is to be assumed, Swapo had slightly surrendered its two-thirds majority which would make it tricky for them to change the country’s Constitution at will as happened before.

This is of great consequence as a clause in the national Constitution makes it possible for political candidates to remain party members, while standing as political independents in presidential, national, regional or local elections.

This loophole was effectively used during the latest elections by a Swapo member, Panduleni Itula, who stood as an independent contender in the presidential election and got 30% of the vote, as opposed to the 56% for Swapo’s Hage Geingob. The urbane dentist ran a successful nation-building campaign and created a great deal of excitement in a nation badly in need of political transformation.

However, despite claiming to be an independent candidate, he represented a particular Swapo political current (mainly based on urban youth) and not necessarily a radical political alternative. But him running as a stand-alone aspirant also meant that the in-fighting among Swapo factions has reached perilous levels. The increasing involvement of the Namibian military in civilian life should be seen in this framework. But the military command also had to proof their loyalty to Geingob through public statements since so many defence force members voted for Itula.

Strangely, the country remains on high security alert, with the flimsy excuse from the military that threats were made against the head of state on social media. Is Namibia drifting towards a military government of a special kind?

The Itula campaign launched a legal challenge in the aftermath of the presidential elections, but the judiciary in Namibia has a history of siding with Swapo. Fortuitously, Itula has continued with mass meetings throughout the country and still draws huge numbers to his rallies. Whatever the upshot of the court challenge, Itula opened the floodgates for others to stand as independent candidates in local government elections from next year onward.

Hopefully, this would include left-wing independent activists. Swapo’s autocratic grip has been overcome and opens up political space for fundamental change.

The former party of colonialism, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) – now re-branded as the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) – gained 16 parliamentary seats as they benefited from the Itula effect. Many voters appeared to have voted for Itula as presidential candidate, but for the (centre-right) PDM as political party, as other formations are simply not taken seriously.

The South West African National Union (Swanu), whose only political message over the years has been that it is the oldest liberation movement, was relieved to retain one representative in the new parliament.

Swanu seems to be stuck in the past and in denial about the anti-colonial fighters who came before them, as well as the remarkable influence of the Industrial and Commercial Union (ICU) in the early 1900s.

Nevertheless, although claiming to be a socialist outfit, this theme has never featured strongly in the political campaigning of that pan-Africanist party and no details about Swanu’s comprehension of socialism have been forthcoming.

Indeed, not a single political party raised left-wing issues such as the rejection of austerity measures, job-sharing, a living income grant or the ecological crisis. The rigging of the economic system as well should have been highlighted.

A left-wing campaign could have been an opportunity to question the ability of a liberal democratic parliament to bring about drastic changes, and to rather encourage the Namibian working people to form grass-roots structures, or to call for a constituent assembly due to the fraudulent elections. The absence of an organised left wing at this juncture in Namibia was glaringly obvious.

Notwithstanding having been expelled by the earlier (right-wing) central committee of the (Trotskyist) Workers’ Revolutionary Party (WRP), Hewat Beukes peculiarly emerged as the number one candidate of that formation on the parliamentary list for the 2019 elections. Beukes, who released a manifesto but did not run any political campaign, uncritically endorsed the (social-democratic) independent presidential candidate in public.

However, the previous militarist elements of the deadly apartheid paramilitary unit (Koevoet) deserted the WRP, which they had taken over before the 2014 elections, and this time by and large joined up with the (right-wing) Republican Party (RP), an organisation that consequently got two parliamentary seats. Opportunely, to save the Namibian left-wing another few years of mortification, the WRP did not make it into parliament.

The newest party, Landless People’s Movement (LPM), will have four representatives as they managed to overcome the public perception of being tribal-based by making a meaningful effort to conscientise their members on the land question. Their leader, Bernadus Swartbooi, is a former deputy minister of lands in the Swapo government.

Swartbooi had a falling out with lands minister Utoni Nujoma, son of Namibia’s first president, Sam Nujoma. The test for the LPM will be to popularise a radical discourse on the land question in the years to come.

The Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF) started off a few years ago with xenophobic and homophobic public statements and got no seats in parliament then. NEFF was able to obtain two seats in this election, although their political base is unclear. It still needs to be seen if they could tap into the discontent among Namibian youth about joblessness.

Other regional political parties such as the All People’s Party (APP), the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo) also made it into parliament, while the fundamentalist Christian Democratic Voice (CDV) will express a far-right discourse.

The Forum for the Future also endorsed Itula, while Namrights of Phil ya Nangoloh supported president Geingogb. The silence of the trade union federations – both the Swapo-affiliated National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) and the independent Trade Union Congress of Namibia (Tucna) – were deafening during the elections. The Council of Churches likewise offered no public declarations.

In the end, very little has changed in the country in terms of the social conditions of the working people. If anything, the global stench of the ‘Fishrot’ scandal hangs over the country and the political elite can no longer pretend that Namibia is a model country.

Swapo’s myth about ‘peace and stability’ has been exposed to the entire world as a smokescreen for the rampant looting by the political elite. Given the extent of the corruption, it is hard to believe that it does not go to the very top. So far, the ministers of fisheries and justice were compelled to resign, but the nation has undoubtedly reached a turning point and the fallout will continue in the longer term. It ought to be pointed out that the Namibian parliament approved the legislation that gave the fisheries minister increasing legislative power that led to the monstrous corruption in that sector, and around 20% of the Swapo parliamentarians and the Namibian Intelligence Agency hold fishing quotas.

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