Namibia’s Political Landscape: A Reflection

Democracy is the politics of the ordinary.John Dunne.There is no escape from yesterday because yesterday has deformed us.Samuel Beckett, Proust (1931) INTRODUCTIONAT Independence almost a decade and a half ago, reconciliation and nation-building became the leitmotivof the politics of the new State.

Given the history that deformed us and the politics of liberation with its craving for loyalty, solidarity and unity, both projects were hardly surprising. What was surprising, however, is that both reconciliation and nation-building have taken different forms to those originally envisioned by their architects.In post-colonial Namibia with its deep contradictions, reconciliation and nation-building became a hegemonic project designed to incorporate previously oppositional elites into the dominant political and economic structures of society.Neither projects were anchored on justice.Neither transformed the society in ways that benefit the citizenry as a whole.THE OPPORTUNITY STATEThe explanation for the above outcome is vested in the nature of the State and its essential character.The post-colonial (and post-apartheid) state, while having escaped in important respects from its racial past, nevertheless has remained imprisoned by the shackles of its economic and social foundations.These frame the space, which both defines the potential of the State for incorporating new social groups (other than those already belonging to the new hegemony) into the post-apartheid order, and simultaneously limits the State’s capacity to address the extreme levels of degrading poverty and inequality in Namibian society.Apart from the undoubted neo-liberal character of the State, a character reinforced by the provisions of the Constitution, the party system and the nature of class power and dominance that it makes possible, too, are key elements that need to be considered in any analysis of the country’s politics.Within the dominant governing party, Swapo Party of Namibia, (the very name invokes the past), the centre-right and the militant mediocrity are ascendant, as illustrated by the outcome of the recent Extraordinary Congress, the cabinet appointments that followed the sacking of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and his deputy and the pronouncements on affirmative action loans for those previously disadvantaged, but who have since joined the ranks of the new elite.At the time of writing, the state of play in the party is too fluid to arrive at any definitive conclusions about the class character of the Party.The alliance with organised labour, at least for now, seems not to meaningfully constrain the rightward shift of Swapo, nor does it hold the governing party at least partially accountable to an important constituency, the workers.On the contrary, some trade unionists have either abandoned the cause or have joined the ranks of those who are feasting happily with those already on the gravy train.In the absence of positions and meaningful parties to the left of Swapo Party of Namibia, accountability would be difficult to deliver.The cautious conclusion that one arrives at is that the state in Namibia has transformed itself into an opportunity state for those who think alike for there is precious little diversity of thinking on key issues in our body politic and for those who use the networks of the State and the Party to enrich themselves.It has to be said that economic and political elites of all parties, for that is the essential character of the minimalist neo-liberal state such as ours, are not averse to power, wealth and rank.The quality and depth of our democracy, for we have an elite democracy with regular no-choice or limited-choice elections, have been seriously undermined by the rise of the militant mediocrity with its seemingly unsatisfied and envious appetite for greed.It is indeed sad to witness the death of idealism and community activism, so soon after independence.The opportunity state rests of the relations between political and economic power, between Swapo and corporate capital and between the political elites and global capital.Taken together, these relations determine the class character of the State.Examining the continuities between the former apartheid and post-apartheid state is as important as addressing the discontinuities.It is instructive to remind oneself that issues of class, privilege, race, justice and inequality were paramount in pre-independent Namibia.With the arrival of democracy during the 1990s they tended to be forgotten and subsumed under the politics of national reconciliation and nation-building.Yet these very issues have a dogged habit of forcing themselves back on to the agenda.In doing so, they lay bare the power and class relations that determine the character of the State.Lack of political will and the nature of the historic compromises borne out of the negotiated transition to independence inhibit the potential for realizing a just reconciliation.The politics of reconciliation and the attendant nation-building project have failed to address past and present injustices and have not significantly contributed towards the building of a human rights culture.In important respects, the State has become a threat to the human security of its own citizens.This is evident in the unruly behaviour of some members the Special Field Force (SFF) and the seeming inability of the Namibian Police to protect life and property against an ever increasing tide of crime.President Nujoma’s original racial reconciliation and his more recent transformative reconciliation (linking racial reconciliation to black economic empowerment), while necessary, have been seriously compromised by his administration’s tendency to resort to racial labelling when confronted by legitimate critique.The land issue is precisely an important litmus test for the credibility and workability of transformative reconciliation.In respect of land, transformative reconciliation has shown both positive and negative sides.On the positive side, there seems to be a firm enough commitment to the Rule of Law and the provisions of the Constitution.On the negative side, the politics of land have yet to be adequately integrated into a national, comprehensive and long-term poverty eradication strategy.Land lends itself too easily to sloganeering and an unquestioning intellectual certainty about the course of struggle.The challenge remains to return to the project of racial transformation with social justice without burdening it with crude racism from ruling party spokespersons or the official and independent media.The crude racism of some members of the white privileged class, as evidenced recently in Gobabis, Outjo and elsewhere, too, signals that national reconciliation has but shallow foundations.DECENTRALISATIONWhile the policy framework and the building of regional and local capacity for decentralisation have received attention, the capacity to deliver resources to the rural and the urban poor, and establishing capacity for development, remains severely compromised.In some instances, corruption and nepotism have been decentralised to the level of the local and the regional State.The paradox persists, while decentralisation can indeed be one of the most effective ways of delivering development, its capacity remains most compromised.More effective ways to building and sustaining local and regional capacity for development need to be urgently explored.Codes of Conduct, while necessary, are not a sufficient condition for effective governance at the local and regional level.Civil society actors, too, need to become much more supportive of Government attempts to decentralise power.There is indeed much room for democratic action at local and regional level.DEMOCRATIC LIFESince independence, progress towards the consolidation of democracy and institution building has been mixed.On the positive side, we have institutions such as the Office of the Ombudsman, the Auditor General and the independent media that constitute a break with our racial past.In addition, the symbolic reconciliation of the first years of independence has been replaced with a transformative initiative that is necessary for a just reconciliation in our country.But, on the negative side, several systemic deficiencies continue to undermine reconciliation and nation-building.First, the post-apartheid state remains a prisoner of narrow class interests, thereby limiting its transformative potential.Second, the absence of a viable opposition dilutes democracy.Third, managerial capacity is limited in some state institutions, especially at the regional and the local level.Finally, the potential for transcending the racial divisions of our past is compromised by both the unwillingness of apartheid’s beneficiaries to acknowledge their complicity in the imposition and maintenance of that racial order, and elites resort to the race card for short-term political gain and as naked opportunism.On closer analysis, it has to be said that there is no political crisis in our country.There is something potentially more dangerous; a crisis of politics.Anti-colonial nationalism and its attendant discourse are dependent upon the earlier racial and colonial discourse.While autonomous, it is not a sovereign discourse.It cannot exist without invoking the colonial and imperial past.It needs enemies to justify its own existence and language.It mimics the colonial in its practice and its strategies of justification.Historically anti-colonial nationalism (just like nationalism) will run its course.It will be eclipsed as has been happening in Zimbabwe.The real victim at the recent Swapo Extraordinary Congress was the idea.We desperately need new ideas.A new language of politics.A language that is more ethical and pro-poor.More visionary and imaginative.More emancipatory.A democratic culture that debates both moral and practical problems.A discourse that values diversity as a key ingredient for unity.There is another urgent task, that of constructing a competent opposition.Election results over the past decade or more indicate that the competence and relevance of the opposition can indeed be questioned.Electoral outcomes suggest that democracy as a system of governance that hinges upon viable choice and checks and balances may indeed be under threat.Statutory watchdog institutions such as the Office of the Ombudsman and the Auditor General, while important, cannot replace the value of a competent and meaningful opposition.Public accountability, both vertical and horizontal, depends critically on a viable, competent and credible opposition.The time has come for all opposition parties to determine the factors responsible for their slump.These are indeed many and varied.One of the challenges for the opposition is to attract more voters in key constituencies, both urban and rural.But Swapo has them captive because of symbolic reasons and because its empowerment policies (made possible by the opportunity state) make it unthinkable for the nascent Black middle class to defect.There is also the challenge of opening political space for diversity.There is too much convergence and a near-absence of a national dialogue on key policy and development issues.This brings us to issues of economic transformation.ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATIONThe demise of apartheid and the introduction of democracy have seen Namibia’s entry into the global economy as an active member of the international community, with robust trade and diplomatic relations.Economic growth, albeit far lower than hoped for, has been consistently achieved over the past few years.Pockets of the local business sector have broken into new regional and international markets.Revenue-sharing capacity has improved.Black entry into the corporate sector has been fostered, if somewhat selectively, and black economic empowerment has been put on the agenda.The country enjoys a respectable credit rating and its reputation for sound economic management has not been seriously tarnished.Not yet anyway.Namibia’s experiment with democracy has been accompanied by the politically and morally disconcerting rise in unemployment.Trends in unemployment, employment earnings, job creation and poverty, might in fact have been aggravated by the government’s existing economic policy.Perhaps there is need for a universal Basic Income Grant (BIG) that is underwritten by a consumption tax? Such a BIG, if properly designed and fairly applied, need not threaten foreign and domestic investment in the economy.Given the nature of the State, one should not be too optimistic that Government would follow such a social-democratic approach to the problems of unemployment, employment earnings, job creation and poverty.CONCLUSIONSNamibia has indeed made meaningful progress since independence.Attempts to consolidate its nascent democracy and to build institutions that can provide the architecture for democratic life, have had mixed results.The opposition remains fragmented and largely impotent.In the absence of a credible opposition, civil society tends to play the role of such an opposition.This is not good for the health of our democracy, since it often casts civil society in an adversarial relationship to the State.This in turn, deprives our national political life from the potential competence and knowledge that reside within civil society.Added to this, there is the matter of lack of diversity in our political thinking on key challenges that face our nation.There is precious little oxygen left for our democracy to entertain new thinking and ideas.Most of our political parties have gone seriously stale.Finally, unemployment and poverty deserve our immediate, ongoing and collective efforts.Our society is simply too unequal and unjust to remain stable and peaceful.We should not be fooled by the oft-repeated assertion that Namibia is a profoundly peaceful place.There is much, too much, violence and crime in our society.The time has come for a Basic Income Grant (BIG) as one way of responding to the degrading poverty that plagues our country and weighs heavily upon our minds and morality.* Andre du Pisani teaches politics and philosophy at The University of Namibia (Unam).The views expressed in this article are his own.What was surprising, however, is that both reconciliation and nation-building have taken different forms to those originally envisioned by their architects.In post-colonial Namibia with its deep contradictions, reconciliation and nation-building became a hegemonic project designed to incorporate previously oppositional elites into the dominant political and economic structures of society.Neither projects were anchored on justice.Neither transformed the society in ways that benefit the citizenry as a whole.THE OPPORTUNITY STATEThe explanation for the above outcome is vested in the nature of the State and its essential character.The post-colonial (and post-apartheid) state, while having escaped in important respects from its racial past, nevertheless has remained imprisoned by the shackles of its economic and social foundations.These frame the space, which both defines the potential of the State for incorporating new social groups (other than those already belonging to the new hegemony) into the post-apartheid order, and simultaneously limits the State’s capacity to address the extreme levels of degrading poverty and inequality in Namibian society.Apart from the undoubted neo-liberal character of the State, a character reinforced by the provisions of the Constitution, the party system and the nature of class power and dominance that it makes possible, too, are key elements that need to be considered in any analysis of the country’s politics.Within the dominant governing party, Swapo Party of Namibia, (the very name invokes the past), the centre-right and the militant mediocrity are ascendant, as illustrated by the outcome of the recent Extraordinary Congress, the cabinet appointments that followed the sacking of the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and his deputy and the pronouncements on affirmative action loans for those previously disadvantaged, but who have since joined the ranks of the new elite.At the time of writing, the state of play in the party is too fluid to arrive at any definitive conclusions about the class character of the Party.The alliance with organised labour, at least for now, seems not to meaningfully constrain the rightward shift of Swapo, nor does it hold the governing party at least partially accountable to an important constituency, the workers.On the contrary, some trade unionists have either abandoned the cause or have joined the ranks of those who are feasting happily with those already on the gravy train.In the absence of positions and meaningful parties to the left of Swapo Party of Namibia, accountability would be difficult to deliver.The cautious conclusion that one arrives at is that the state in Namibia has transformed itself into an opportunity state for those who think alike for there is precious little diversity of thinking on key issues in our body politic and for those who use the networks of the State and the Party to enrich themselves.It has to be said that economic and political elites of all parties, for that is the essential character of the minimalist neo-liberal state such as ours, are not averse to power, wealth and rank.The quality and depth of our democracy, for we have an elite democracy with regular no-choice or limited-choice elections, have been seriously undermined by the rise of the militant mediocrity with its seemingly unsatisfied and envious appetite for greed.It is indeed sad to witness the death of idealism and community activism, so soon after independence.The opportunity state rests of the relations between political and economic power, between Swapo and corporate capital and between the political elites and global capital.Taken together, these relations determine the class character of the State.Examining the continuities between the former apartheid and post-apartheid state is as important as addressing the discontinuities.It is instructive to remind oneself that issues of class, privilege, race, justice and inequality were paramount in pre-independent Namibia.With the arrival of democracy during the 1990s they tended to be forgotten and subsumed under the politics of national reconciliation and nation-building.Yet these very issues have a dogged habit of forcing themselves back on to the agenda.In doing so, they lay bare the power and class relations that determine the character of the State.Lack of political will and the nature of the historic compromises borne out of the negotiated transition to independence inhibit the potential for realizing a just reconciliation.The politics of reconciliation and the attendant nation-building project have failed to address past and present injustices and have not significantly contributed towards the building of a human rights culture.In important respects, the State has become a threat to the human security of its own citizens.This is evident in the unruly behaviour of some members the Special Field Force (SFF) and the seeming inability of the Namibian Police to protect life and property against an ever increasing tide of crime.President Nujoma’s original racial reconciliation and his more recent transformative reconciliation (linking racial reconciliation to black economic empowerment), while necessary, have been seriously compromised by his administration’s tendency to resort to racial labelling when confronted by legitimate critique.The land issue is precisely an important litmus test for the credibility and workability of transformative reconciliation.In respect of land, transformative reconciliation has shown both positive and negative sides.On the positive side, there seems to be a firm enough commitment to the Rule of Law and the provisions of the Constitution.On the negative side, the politics of land have yet to be adequately integrated into a national, comprehensive and long-term poverty eradication strategy.Land lends itself too easily to sloganeering and an unquestioning intellectual certainty about the course of struggle.The challenge remains to return to the project of racial transformation with social justice without burdening it with crude racism from ruling party spokespersons or the official and independent media.The crude racism of some members of the white privileged class, as evidenced recently in Gobabis, Outjo and elsewhere, too, signals that national reconciliation has but shallow foundations.DECENTRALISATIONWhile the policy framework and the building of regional and local capacity for decentralisation have received attention, the capacity to deliver resources to the rural and the urban poor, and establishing capacity for development, remains severely compromised.In some instances, corruption and nepotism have been decentralised to the level of the local and the regional State.The paradox persists, while decentralisation can indeed be one of the most effective ways of delivering development, its capacity remains most compromised.More effective ways to building and sustaining local and regional capacity for development need to be urgently explored.Codes of Conduct, while necessary, are not a sufficient condition for effective governance at the local and regional level.Civil society actors, too, need to become much more supportive of Government attempts to decentralise power.There is indeed much room for democratic action at local and regional level.DEMOCRATIC LIFESince independence, progress towards the consolidation of democracy and institution building has been mixed.On the positive side, we have institutions such as the Office of the Ombudsman, the Auditor General and the independent media that constitute a break with our racial past.In addition, the symbolic reconciliation of the first years of independence has been replaced with a transformative initiative that is necessary for a just reconciliation in our country.But, on the negative side, several systemic deficiencies continue to undermine reconciliation and nation-building.First, the post-apartheid state remains a prisoner of narrow class interests, thereby limiting its transformative potential.Second, the absence of a viable opposition dilutes democracy.Third, managerial capacity is limited in some state institutions, especially at the regional and the local level.Finally, the potential for transcending the racial divisions of our past is compromised by both the unwillingness of apartheid’s beneficiaries to acknowledge their complicity in the imposition and maintenance of that racial order, and elites resort to the race card for short-term political gain and as naked opportunism.On closer analysis, it has to be said that there is no political crisis in our country.There is something potentially more dangerous; a crisis of politics.Anti-colonial nationalism and its attendant discourse are dependent upon the earlier racial and colonial discourse.While autonomous, it is not a sovereign discourse.It cannot exist without invoking the colonial and imperial past.It needs enemies to justify its own existence and language.It mimics the colonial in its practice and its strategies of justification.Historically anti-colonial nationalism (just like nationalism) will run its course.It will be eclipsed as has been happening in Zimbabwe.The real victim at the recent Swapo Extraordinary Congress was the idea.We desperately need new ideas.A new language of politics.A language that is more ethical and pro-poor.More visionary and imaginative.More emancipatory.A democratic culture that debates both moral and practical problems.A discourse that values diversity as a key ingredient for unity.There is another urgent task, that of constructing a competent opposition.Election results over the past decade or more indicate that the competence and relevance of the opposition can indeed be questioned.Electoral outcomes suggest that democracy as a system of governance that hinges upon viable choice and checks and balances may indeed be under threat.Statutory watchdog institutions such as the Office of the Ombudsman and the Auditor General, while important, cannot replace the value of a competent and meaningful opposition.Public accountability, both vertical and horizontal, depends critically on a viable, competent and credible opposition.The time has come for all opposition parties to determine the factors responsible for their slump.These are indeed many and varied.One of the challenges for the opposition is to attract more voters in key constituencies, both urban and rural.But Swapo has them captive because of symbolic reasons and because its empowerment policies (made possible by the opportunity state) make it unthinkable for the nascent Black middle class to defect.There is also the challenge of opening political space for diversity.There is too much convergence and a near-absence of a national dialogue on key policy and development issues.This brings us to issues of economic transformation.ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATIONThe demise of apartheid and the introduction of democracy have seen Namibia’s entry into the global economy as an active member of the international community, with robust trade and diplomatic relations.Economic growth, albeit far lower than hoped for, has been consistently achieved over the past few years.Pockets of the local business sector have broken into new regional and international markets.Revenue-sharing capacity has improved.Black entry into the corporate sector has been fostered, if somewhat selectively, and black economic empowerment has been put on the agenda.The country enjoys a respectable credit rating and its reputation for sound economic management has not been seriously tarnished.Not yet anyway.Namibia’s experiment with democracy has been accompanied by the politically and morally disconcerting rise in unemployment.Trends in unemployment, employment earnings, job creation and poverty, might in fact have been aggravated by the government’s existing economic policy.Perhaps there is need for a universal Basic Income Grant (BIG) that is underwritten by a consumption tax? Such a BIG, if properly designed and fairly applied, need not threaten foreign and domestic investment in the economy.Given the nature of the State, one should not be too optimistic that Government would follow such a social-democratic approach to the problems of unemployment, employment earnings, job creation and poverty.CONCLUSIONSNamibia has indeed made meaningful progress since independence.Attempts to consolidate its nascent democracy and to build institutions that can provide the architecture for democratic life, have had mixed results.The opposition remains fragmented and largely impotent.In the absence of a credible opposition, civil society tends to play the role of such an opposition.This is not good for the health of our democracy, since it often casts civil society in an adversarial relationship to the State.This in turn, deprives our national political life from the potential competence and knowledge that reside within civil society.Added to this, there is the matter of lack of diversity in our political thinking on key challenges that face our nation.There is precious little oxygen left for our democracy to entertain new thinking and ideas.Most of our political parties have gone seriously stale.Finally, unemployment and poverty deserve our immediate, ongoing and collective efforts.Our society is simply too unequal and unjust to remain stable and peaceful.We should not be fooled by the oft-repeated assertion that Namibia is a profoundly peaceful place.There is much, too much, violence and crime in our society.The time has come for a Basic Income Grant (BIG) as one way of responding to the degrading poverty that plagues our country and weighs heavily upon our minds and morality. * Andre du Pisani teaches politics and philosophy at The University of Namibia (Unam).The views expressed in this article are his own.