Strong appeal from Catholic bishops to political parties

THE Roman Catholic Church has called on all political parties and their leaders to show political and democratic maturity during their campaigning leading to the upcoming elections in November and to avoid personal attacks and hate speech.

In a strongly worded pastoral letter released over the weekend after the annual Catholic Bishops’ Conference, they called on the ‘leaders of political parties to demonstrate the spirit of democratic maturity by exercising prudence in their public campaigns. They should avoid character assassination and sowing seeds of hate via their speeches,’ the Catholic bishops appealed.’We call on all citizens to be vigilant and to protect our democracy that was hard-earned and hard-won through the sacrifices of many lives. We commend Government for bringing about development in Namibia and for maintaining peace and stability, but there is still a litany of challenges facing our country today and it is up to each individual to decide which (political) party has the policies as well as the commitment to address them effectively.’’We advise that it is important to judge a party on its overall policy regarding governance in relation to these challenges and to look closely into the fine points of manifestos. While we may wish that the electorate evaluates its choices on objective grounds, the fact is that most Namibians still vote on the basis of deep-felt loyalties. Too often, the identifying factors are tribe, race, class, language or simply an unshakeable historical affiliation.’The pastoral letter of the Catholic Bishop Conference further emphasised that the Constitution allows freedom of association, which includes joining or forming associations, unions and political parties.’It is therefore an uncalled-for-behaviour for any political party or region to declare ‘no go’ areas for emerging or existing (political) parties.’ All political parties should adhere to the Code of Conduct for elections.’We encourage the freedom of disseminating information to all citizens with regard to voter registration and this information should be correct, impartial, truthful and complete in order to enable citizens to make their own decisions, according to each individual’s informed conscience,’ it continues.All political parties and their supporters should accept the election results should they be declared free and fair by the competent authority, the bishops urged. ‘We as the Catholic Church are prepared to make our facilities available – on request – for polling stations during the upcoming elections,’ the pastoral letter, signed by Archbishop Liborius Nashenda, stated. ‘We are ready to serve as election observers should the training be made available to the citizens. We strongly enjoin our priests, deacons and religious leaders to promote the spirit of unity, reconciliation, tolerance and peace. Although we belong to different political parties, in Church we are ONE.’ Although several churches supported and signed a declaration on elections earlier this year, the Roman Catholic Church did not sign. Approached for comment yesterday, Father Werner Afunde, Vicar General of the RCC told The Namibian, it felt that it worked via the Council of Churches in Namibia, which had also recently expressed itself on the upcoming elections.