Swapo in Namibia: A Case of Democratic Authoritarianism?

• HENNING MELBERARGUABLY, the next Swapo congress is setting the track for Namibia’s medium-term political future. Another decisive factor will be the party’s electoral college ahead of the next parliamentary and presidential elections, expected in November 2019.

For those not familiar with Namibian politics, this might be difficult to comprehend. After all, in multiparty democracies, normally not a single party sets the agenda. What matters are parliamentary and public debates, competing (and at times conflicting) political programmes, election campaigns and the like. Not so in Namibia.

For a variety of reasons, Swapo remains unchallenged in political control since independence. And people in their majority continue to equate the party with the nation. They entrust the responsibilities for governance to its representatives.

As a former liberation movement in political power since independence, Swapo’s trajectory translates into a specific form of authoritarian democracy. It has managed to anchor an enduring party dominance, based on a specific historical legacy. This goes hand in hand with a heroic narrative or patriotic history, which has Swapo at the centre.

Namibia’s one-party-dominance resembles features of what the scholars Levitsky and Way call competitive authoritarianism. They suggest: “The most durable party-based regimes are those that are organised around non-material sources of cohesion, such as ideology, ethnicity, or bonds of solidarity rooted in a shared experience of violent struggle.”

As they conclude: “Revolutionary or liberation struggles also tend to produce a generation of leaders … that possesses the necessary legitimacy to impose discipline during crises.” Hence, “new ruling parties that emerged from violent struggle, such as Swapo in Namibia, … appear to be more durable.”

Over a generation into post-colonial governance, Swapo is still to a large extent dominated and controlled by the first generation of the liberation struggle’s leadership. But the tendency of a political gerontocracy maintaining control over the political sphere in the party, in government and the public space, comes at a price.

A frustrated younger generation has started to challenge the dons within and outside of the party. Social movements engage with matters not left any longer to the party to solve. This signals disappointment over the lack of delivery not openly debated.

Similar to other parties in African countries (and elsewhere too), Swapo’s inner-party structures are hardly facilitating representation, conflict resolution, opposition and accountability, or the institutionalisation of democratic behaviour and attitudes.

Inner-party contestation avoids the public sphere and discourse. It takes place clandestinely, and is peppered with intrigues, back-stabbing, gossip and rumour-mongering. This makes the preparations for the next congress a matter of speculation as to who is positioning how and for what.

Public interest and media coverage add to the hype. Both exist for the simple reason that the party-internal power struggles are decisive for the political future of Namibia. It continues to rest mainly with decisions as to who is appointed party-internally to stand in the general elections.

The institutional provisions and structures in place qualify Namibia’s political system in formal terms as a full-blown multiparty democracy, based on democratic constitutional principles and the rule of law. But the actual policy has under such circumstances strong elements of what could be labelled democratic or competitive authoritarianism.

The overwhelming dominance of one party, in combination with its advantages used to keep any opposition under control, rather suggests that Namibia’s political system displays features of a hybrid regime, combining democracy with authoritarianism.

Namibia fully embraces in its normative frameworks the legal franchises of a democratic state: universal suffrage, regular elections, guarantees for civil and human rights, the right to associate and organise, as well as protection against the haphazard exercise of power. Practices by the hegemonic party, however, ignore or violate at times these substantive elements of the democratic state.

The ‘party state’ has been transformed into a ‘party machine’. It serves as a vehicle for the upward mobility of party elites. This goes hand in hand with material benefits. They are justified ideologically as an entitlement due to the sacrifices during the struggle days.

They are also claimed as a legitimate historical rightness of transformation. As a result, informal and shadow networks that are controlled by the party establishment are exercised through the state apparatus, and applied to promote own interests.

But open abuse of the structures, institutions and normative frameworks as designed by the Constitution and laws remain absent. There is an independent judiciary, and a free press. There is hardly any physical harassment of a benign political opposition, and a general willingness to endure (though grudgingly) critical analyses without immediate punishment of those considered and labelled ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘prophets of doom’. It might, therefore, be far too early to give up on democracy in Namibia.

While competitive authoritarian regimes do not meet all criteria for political governance fully committed to democracy, they at the same time fall short of full-scale authoritarian forms of political rule. Despite at times manipulating or bypassing democratic principles, the relative strength of such a regime is based on its popular legitimacy.

It allows those executing political hegemony and control to keep formal democracy officially as the only game in town, without any risk to their dominance. The real test of how democratic Namibia really is will only come when Swapo’s dominance would be seriously challenged for the first time.

In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.