Namibia’s Leadership Emerges Magnanimous

FOR several weeks it appeared as if Namibia’s presidential and national elections were bound to be in jeopardy due to the potential boycott by some of the opposition parties who were displeased with the fact that the Electoral Commission of Namibia had awarded the contract for printing the ballot papers to a company affiliated with the ruling party.

Initially the ruling party seemed to treat the concern rather casually. But in time it also dawned on the leadership that the best approach in politics is never to leave anything to chance, more so as some of the objecting parties were threatening a boycott, while it was quietly rumoured that some of the political parties had briefed their legal gurus.But perhaps the groundbreaking leadership was provided by the Electoral Commission of Namibia when they regrouped quietly and resolved to review the tender in question. Reports had it that a lot took place in consultations behind closed doors, bordering on subtle arm-twisting for the ECN to uphold the contract and stand firm. But the commissioners must have stood their ground.And so did the tender awarded to the company shift amid complaints against and accolades towards the Electoral Commission of Namibia for their bold stance. What I found very encouraging though, is that in the end all the political stakeholders came around to settle on the same page, to include the ruling party, in accepting the South African company that was awarded the tender to print the ballot papers for Namibia’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The highlight so far was when all contesting political parties joined the Electoral Commission of Namibia in receiving the ballot papers from South Africa. My friend from Zimbabwe once said to me when I visited Harare during the time of their constitutional crisis: ‘You know Comrade Kandetu, you Namibians are too much of a compromise state… each time somebody cries foul for nothing you reach a compromise, believing that the solution is to find a compromise.’ Well, maybe this is true, but Namibia has come to find political stability as a result of the culture of compromise. The very fact that Namibia was founded on a consensus Constitution speaks volumes about the approach of the people of Namibia towards nationhood. As the nation prepares for elections in less than one month, there is at least one huddle out of the way and one hopes that there will be no stumbling blocks and in the end the people will choose how best they want to be governed.On a humorous note, this reminds me of the anecdotes that are normally rampant during elections. One of these stories had it that, during the Untag-supervised elections, a mother and her son lived in the Okakarara area. The mother was a DTA supporter and the son was Swapo. Realising that all efforts at persuasion had failed, the son decided to escape his mother and go to vote early in the morning. When he returned his mother insisted that they go to vote together and he said he was not interested. Still the mother insisted and they went. When the mother left the booth she proudly said how she has outmanoeuvred Swapo’s tactics: They cut one finger from their party sign, but she still recognised it and voted for her party. The son convinced her that she had voted for the wrong party with one finger instead of her usual two. It was all over. MAKE SURE TO TAKE A SECOND LOOK!