Political Perspective

WHETHER or not the DTA and other opposition parties get their acts together, it doesn’t take a soothsayer to predict that they still won’t manage to unseat Swapo in elections later this year.

While there may be a slight shift of emphasis in results here and there, overall Swapo will retain its more than two-thirds majority. For the time being at least, it is my view that the status quo will remain largely unchanged.WHY, one might ask, is this the case? Many factors come into play, but most of all the answers lie with the majority of Namibians themselves.Swapo, while having brought about a number of changes for the better, especially in the initial stages of Independence, has not had resounding success in the most crucial area of all – improving the lot of those many Namibians who live ‘on the wrong side of the tracks’, in the economic sense.Yet most of those people will still turn out to vote for the ruling party.Why, one may ask, when they have largely been disappointed? I believe that Namibian politics are in a pretty sorry state overall.People may well be increasingly sceptical about Swapo, but the opposition parties in existence don’t really offer them much in the way of choices.It’s still a case (throughout the political spectrum) of the same, mostly old, faces, who are unlikely to invigorate the electorate into thinking that they can suddenly present them with new and innovative ideas since they’ve been round since time immemorial.This may sound cynical to some of you reading this, but isn’t it largely true? Perhaps it is the mechanisms which are producing our youth leaders, whether it is the Namibia Youth Council, Swapo Youth League, DTA or CoD youth leagues for example, that are at fault for churning out replicas of the old guard in Namibian politics, singing the same old songs of rhetoric that have gone before, and which actually don’t have much place in the new order any longer.You see it in the way politicians disport themselves.We talk about peace, yet glorify war.President Sam Nujoma in gilt and glittering military attire at Ongulumbashe; ditto Chief Kuaima Riruako at various commemorations.Why do we continually emphasise a military and warlike character in this country? Is it some sort of almost ingrained longing for the days, both in the distant and more recent past, when wars of various kinds both decimated and divided our population? Youth look to their elders for emulation and inspiration.And when last did any leader do something so earth-shatteringly positive for the people of this country that they would sit up and take notice? I cannot recall.It’s the same old story much of the time with the same tired leaders and their empty words and promises echoed down through the years.When last did we see a truly inspired, committed youth leader, who is able to electrify and audience and make them sit up and listen? I can’t help but think of the young Barack Obama in the US, who is doing just that.Wouldn’t it be great if Namibia had young people of his ilk who can take the country by storm and put the old guard where they belong, in retirement? Sad.Because democracy gave us all these choices which we cannot exercise because there are so few available to us.Small wonder then, the shrinking voter turnouts and increased apathy and a ruling party which doesn’t have to deliver.Perhaps the answer lies in the youth rejecting the old structures that churn out carbon copies of their elders and forging a new direction for the country and its people.For the time being at least, it is my view that the status quo will remain largely unchanged.WHY, one might ask, is this the case? Many factors come into play, but most of all the answers lie with the majority of Namibians themselves.Swapo, while having brought about a number of changes for the better, especially in the initial stages of Independence, has not had resounding success in the most crucial area of all – improving the lot of those many Namibians who live ‘on the wrong side of the tracks’, in the economic sense.Yet most of those people will still turn out to vote for the ruling party.Why, one may ask, when they have largely been disappointed? I believe that Namibian politics are in a pretty sorry state overall.People may well be increasingly sceptical about Swapo, but the opposition parties in existence don’t really offer them much in the way of choices.It’s still a case (throughout the political spectrum) of the same, mostly old, faces, who are unlikely to invigorate the electorate into thinking that they can suddenly present them with new and innovative ideas since they’ve been round since time immemorial.This may sound cynical to some of you reading this, but isn’t it largely true? Perhaps it is the mechanisms which are producing our youth leaders, whether it is the Namibia Youth Council, Swapo Youth League, DTA or CoD youth leagues for example, that are at fault for churning out replicas of the old guard in Namibian politics, singing the same old songs of rhetoric that have gone before, and which actually don’t have much place in the new order any longer.You see it in the way politicians disport themselves.We talk about peace, yet glorify war.President Sam Nujoma in gilt and glittering military attire at Ongulumbashe; ditto Chief Kuaima Riruako at various commemorations.Why do we continually emphasise a military and warlike character in this country? Is it some sort of almost ingrained longing for the days, both in the distant and more recent past, when wars of various kinds both decimated and divided our population? Youth look to their elders for emulation and inspiration.And when last did any leader do something so earth-shatteringly positive for the people of this country that they would sit up and take notice? I cannot recall.It’s the same old story much of the time with the same tired leaders and their empty words and promises echoed down through the years.When last did we see a truly inspired, committed youth leader, who is able to electrify and audience and make them sit up and listen? I can’t help but think of the young Barack Obama in the US, who is doing just that.Wouldn’t it be great if Namibia had young people of his ilk who can take the country by storm and put the old guard where they belong, in retirement? Sad.Because democracy gave us all these choices which we cannot exercise because there are so few available to us.Small wonder then, the shrinking voter turnouts and increased apathy and a ruling party which doesn’t have to deliver.Perhaps the answer lies in the youth rejecting the old structures that churn out carbon copies of their elders and forging a new direction for the country and its people.