The return of ‘native commissioners’ in an independent Republic of Namibia

THEY say the more things change, the more they remain the same.

They also say that history repeats itself. And they say no one learns from the experience of others. Lord Acton, in a letter to Anglican Bishop Mandell Creighton, warned in 1887 that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely!These sayings apply with great force to the Namibian socio-political situation 20 years after the attainment of political independence in 1990. There seems to be a nostalgia to return to the days when the country was ruled by remote control from Pretoria, and the people had absolutely no say in who was to exercise oversight and absolute power over their affairs. There was a time when the behaviour of the majority of the Namibian inhabitants was dictated by edicts that arrived in suitcases along with new envoys who were dispatched to come and rule the natives, those days when the new kommissaris was parachuted onto the people and would move in style from headman to headman as he introduced himself and instilled more fear, issuing new decrees by which the listening natives had to live in total obedience. He also brought goodies with which he bribed the traditional chiefs to submit to his whims. We are back to the future when these powerful commissioners operated under the supervision of one chief commissioner, Jannie De Wet, the Kommissaris Generaal van die Inboorlingvolke van Suidwes Afrika (Commissioner General of the Native Peoples of South West Africa) At that time, it was clear that there was no pretence of democracy nor decentralisation, not to mention any participation of the people. There was only one voice, the Master’s Voice, and unruly natives had only one obligation-to listen and toe the line. The kommissaris was above the traditional chiefs, above church leaders – he was the law!Dawn broke on a divided Namibia when, on March 3, 1992, the first democratic Government of Namibia, by way of Government Gazette no. 368, created 13 regions and 96 constituencies, as a system through which the country would be governed democratically and power decentralised. By that act, the government set in motion one of the most vexing processes in any democracy-the regulation of power relationships between national and regional government structures, and the ongoing coordination of the interlocking network between these centres of power. What was not foreseen was that in the future, as systems matured, there would be terrains of tension that needed to be managed, by principles one would have hoped, and not the whims of politicians at any given time.The previous colonial and apartheid administrations developed and left behind a bogus division of labour, creating a watertight central white power structure and artificial black ‘self-governing’ ethnic entities, known as homelands, across the country, each with a commissioner, or kommissaris. The homelands had no power except to execute the whims of their white bosses, whose preoccupation was white security and dominance, and whose loyalty was to their appointing masters outside the homelands. These colonial administrations developed policies externally and then asked – ordered – the black politicians to put their native spin on these and translate them in accordance with the issues on the ground, as long as they did not pose threats to the appointing masters. The black local authorities were in essence collective security guards for the whites, who needed peace and quiet in these areas.The first Namibian Government sought to put an end to this awkward arrangement, with the real intention to grow democracy in a country that was divided historically along ethnic and tribal lines, not to mention the sinister motives of the colonial administrations to entrench these. Presidential Proclamation No.12 of 1990 established the First Delimitation Commission, which, after careful study, advised the government on the way forward, and on June 30, 1991, submitted its report to President Sam Nujoma. It recommended creating the present 13 regions and 96 constituencies. In November 1992, the first home-run elections were held. Now Namibia has two legislative houses, the National Assembly and the National Council.Inherent in the wisdom of the Government of the Republic to establish these new structures of governance were the desires: (a) to foster effective governance and smooth running of periodic elections, (b) to inculcate participatory democracy in the citizens of New Namibia, (c) to facilitate nation building, and (d) to place the country on the path towards long-term national and economic development. The establishment of the new regions and the election of officials to serve on regional councils would in the long run most certainly create tension between Windhoek and the seats of the regions. Elections are only a small component of democracy-for voters to elect their representatives whose decisions and policies are influenced by the electors! There was going to be constructive tension between the national and regional interests as they both struggled to assert themselves over the electorates. And as democracy matured and the regions grew in confidence, there would be conflict, due to a number of factors:First, the Constitution says very little about this important division of power between national and regional governments. Without a solid constitutional basis to guide them, the central government and the regional authorities are likely to clash. The regions are by definition dependent for their life and direction on the central governments. One could say it was prudent on the part of the constitution makers to allow these structures to develop and evolve as exigencies arose.Second, in the beginning, the regions lacked their own sense of identity and legitimacy, and to all intents and purposes, were short of strong leaders to shape the characters and future of the regions. Instead, the regional leaders became obsequious towards the ruling party and its leaders, and in so doing rendered themselves nothing but vessels and conduits of party politics instead of listening to the people. However, as the regions grew in confidence, some regional leaders began to turn their ears to the people on the ground for their own legitimacy, credibility and sustainability. This put them on a collision course with Windhoek for whom the people on the ground remain mere voting ciphers, deserving of attention only in times of elections, for the purpose of garnering their votes in order to stay in power. This reality eventually rendered the national government insecure and suspicious of some regional leaders whom they thought were getting out of control.The experience in the Caprivi Region where the local people expressed a preference for a governor different from the wishes of the ruling party’s head office brought this matter to the fore. The people in Caprivi were the first to exercise their right to let the ruling party know in no uncertain terms that their right to elect who represented them was a sacred one. Even attempts by the party’s Secretary General (who was, incidentally, imposed to lead a constituency from which she neither came nor derived a leadership mandate) were met with the voice of democracy. Swapo is very cunning to prevent such an incident from occurring again. In other words, the questions asked about the hurry to pass an Act that would allow the Head of State to handpick and turn people who are not necessarily political into governors were not about strengthening democracy or even decentralising power, but about control. The best and fastest way to gain control of this situation was to change the manner in which the top leaders in the regions get to their seats. To have them elected would make them become too strong and confident, whereas to appoint them would make them meek and fearful of the central government. Consequently the Government Notices Nos. 254 and 255 of 24/25 November 2010, which promulgate the amendment to pave the way for the appointments of the governors and their advisors, make it abundantly clear these governors will not be accountable to the people in the regions, and that in practice they will listen for and report to the President and the relevant ministers about the affairs in the regions. The promulgations go as far as stating that these new commissioners will be accorded the right to require information from elected junior officials in the region so that these governors can inform the central government, who is their only client. This, to say the least, is intimidating, in many ways resembling the activities of the kommissarisse of old. Third, there is the reality of ethnic and tribal politics that are making an unfortunate comeback into the body politic of the nation. The last Presidential and national assembly elections reveal that ancient tribal, linguistic and ethnic cleavages have not disappeared as yet, and that when ethnic entrepreneurs become frustrated with the normal democratic politics, they can reactivate these sentiments that invariably prove deadly in the context of raw African politics. These traditional realities are bound to assert themselves again and again, and the national government is understandably averse to the reality of divisive politics. So, perhaps with the best intentions, Windhoek would want to frustrate these divisions by appointing governors who would not be accused of having won their seats through tribal allegiances. The fact of the matter is that ethnic and tribal realities cannot be readily dismissed; as they existed long before apartheid was born and promulgated. Within the tribal sentiments are located various cultures, and attempts by political systems to stifle ethnic or linguistic expressions by way of imposing leaders may just have the opposite effect to what was intended. And appointing executive leaders who have never been elected might exacerbate the frustrations in the regions: this might only lead to ugly consequences. As a matter of fact, most collective memories of the nation lie within these ethnic realities and not within the boundaries created by the new nation state. The last National Assembly and Presidential elections of 2009 were not devoid of these realities, and some of the results proved just how alive these issues are!As is generally the case, the problem is in the context, and the devil is always in the detail. It would appear that the current government, through its national legislative bodies, has become dissatisfied with the manner in which the regions have been administered in the last 18 years since the introduction of the Regional Councils Act in 1992, which is in line with Article 102 of the Republic of Namibia, that supreme law of the land, to which all structures of government and every citizen is subjected. This supreme law says that those who serve in these governing structures, whether regional, municipal, town and village councils, must be freely elected in accord with the Constitution and any relevant Act of Parliament that is not repugnant to the Constitution. It is important to remember here that Article 105 of the Constitution articulates the principle that every regional council shall consist of persons who qualify to be elected to the National Council as the second house of the nation’s legislative organ of government.Article 109 (1) of the Constitution provides that each Regional Council elects from amongst its members a Management Committee which is vested with executive powers in accordance with the provisions of an Act of Parliament, and that each Management Committee has a Chairperson who is elected by the members of the Regional Council at the time the Management Committee is constituted (Article 109(2)).In light of the above, the overriding terms of the Constitution provide that Chairpersons of Regional Councils, erroneously called Governors, are persons who are freely elected by their fellow councillors after their elections, as provided for by the Constitution and relevant law. Incidentally, the term ‘Governor’ does not appear in the Constitution of the Republic and seems to have originated from the language of political leaders who did not quite understand what a governor is. And owing to laziness on the part of the crafters of the names we use, and due to the lack of sophistication of the body politic, these chairpersons were called governors, whereas governors are leaders of states in federal arrangements such as the USA, Brazil and Nigeria where these high office bearers run for election and preside over semi-autonomous entities with constitutions and the other trappings. The regions in Namibia are far from this, never mind the fact that Namibia is a unitary state and cannot thus be governed by independent governors. Namibia’s regions are not independent and make no laws and regulations outside of those of the national state. The people who have been termed governors should have been called either Chairpersons of Regional Councils or simply Chief Councillors. As with an interpretation of any clause of the constitution or law, the interpreter ought to attempt to answer as accurately as possible, what the intentions of the creators of the law were. Right here, it is clear that the spirit of the constitution was that of accelerating democracy and decentralisation of power in the country, not the accumulation of executive powers in the hands of the President. Therefore, if democracy was the genuine purpose of the constitution, the President was not to be expected to appoint regional leaders, as they ought to stem from the people in those regions themselves! The only way to alter this is to amend the constitution and undo the spirit encapsulated there.It is rather clear that the desire to change the law so that the President appoints commissioners in the regions has nothing to do with providing better services to the people in the regions. It has everything to do with the preoccupation to control and to secure enough space to create jobs for pals. If it was about growing democracy and decentralising power, the noble constitution makers would have thought about it then. They did not, because their concerns at the time were better governance systems, improved service delivery, decentralization of decision making and accountability and the extension of democracy to all spheres of government. If Namibia possessed a true legislative ethos, the empowering of the President to appoint his cronies would have required a real constitutional amendment!Whatever arguments the ruling party advanced to push, in fact, steamroller the Act through, cannot be countenanced in the light of the constitution. The arguments that were offered are not only flawed but also fly in the face of the drive to decentralize government, not to mention the fact that the Act defeats the purpose of democracy, especially at regional levels where it is most needed. It must be pointed out that what was at issue is not the heavy load of work carried by the governors, but the extent to which Swapo as the ruling party was beginning to feel that it was losing its grip on the affairs in the regions. First, the central preoccupation was to guarantee an absence of dissent in the regions by appointing officials who would serve not the people, but the President of the party as his spy, messenger, defender and praise singer.Second, part of the motive to appoint governors is to send a strong message to the regions that regional authorities are accountable to the party, not the people on the ground. There is no better way to do this than to place in the regions two centres of power; the Regional Council and the Governors-both of them without authority, which is vested in the central government. In other words, the desire here is NOT to decentralize, but to usurp power from the people, concentrating it in the hands of the President and, by extension, the ruling party and its top decision making apparatus. Third, the decision to deploy governors with suitcases full of instructions and ready-made decisions is an expression of the fact that the authorities are not happy with the constitution, and desire to run the country the way the party wishes. In this context the ruling party has demonstrated an uncanny confidence that it can get its way, even if this were done unconstitutionally, despite the undertakings the nation made to build democracy and accountable governance mechanisms in the country,. The fact that the ruling party wields the majority in the two legislative Houses both in terms of numbers as well as of resources allows it to bludgeon legislation through.Fourth, the regions become centres of patronage, whereby the ruling party finds good jobs for comrades who might have nothing else to do and who need, for lack of a better word, to be recycled in order to keep the party alive. The worrisome fact here is that, in terms of the new dispensation, the ruling party has the power to ignore and disregard the expression of the people on the ground. In other words, even if another party has won a region, the ruling party can appoint one of its own members to ‘govern’ such a region in a climate wherein the ruler can only be hostile towards the voters who are perceived to be for the opposition. This looks like the creation and spreading of computers who operate like machines: Good enough to solve issues, but totally unable to ask questions. On the contrary, democracy is precisely about asking questions and about arguing to persuade others to change.Fifth, it is clear that the problem that the sponsors of the act wanted to solve was unrelated to the desire to grow democracy in Namibia, but rather to make sure that the ruling party equals Namibia and vice versa. The real intention is how to transfer more power to the ruling and in so doing create more space to dispense patronage and reward loyalists who possess no independent minds. In other words, the game of politics becomes a reward, not for merit and service to the nation, but for fear, so that the ability to think independently and thus make a contribution to the nation becomes a punishable act.Lastly, a new problem is created and enlarged, namely that of the arrival on the political scene of people, good people, who had no aspirations to become bad politicians, who are thrown into leadership and pretend to be leaders, whereas they are not leaders at all! They will develop a sense that because they were never elected, their responsibility is to please the one who appointed them, not the people. They are likely to do more spying on the elected regional leaders for the President, and, owing to the understandable inferiority complex with which they assume their responsibilities, their behaviour is likely to resemble that of the old Native or Bantu Affairs Commissioners-KOMMISSARISSE. The difference is that the commissioners of old were sincere and did not pretend to do things in the name of democracy-they were representatives of their Groot Baas in Pretoria.From the debates that have occurred, it would appear that Swapo wants to place governors in the regions who will carry out the party’s instructions. The real paradox here is that there seems to be uneasiness with the fact that the elected officials tend to fear what the people will say and are therefore slow in pushing the party’s agenda. Then, it is clear that the new governors will be an entity unto themselves with no accountability to anybody but the President. We are thus back to Lord Lugard, the British envoy to Nigeria who mastered the art of Divide et Empera (divide and rule). In the context of colonial Namibia, our last experiences of these governorships took place with the series of Administrators General, starting with Justice M. T. Steyn (South African Government Proclamation/Government Notice No. 1666 of 19 August 1977), and ending with Administrator General Louis Pienaar in March 1990. These officials had one assignment, to carry out the instructions of their boss in Pretoria and rule the country by decrees better known as AGs: chief amongst them, AG8, a draconian law that introduced detention without trial in the country.One therefore has to wonder about the real function of the appointed governors if there are already regional councillors who were directly elected by the people. One cannot help but wonder whether this move was not prompted by an element of fear in the ruling party, that it would not do so well in the recently concluded elections for regional and local authorities and so made sure that it would still control the regions even if the elected officials were not from its ranks. This is part of the chronic syndrome that eats away at dignity and integrity in African politics, in other words where political leaders make decisions and policies not based upon national interests, but the interests of the individuals in times of their excitement and even fear.The real question is: If there are councils elected by the people, accountable to the electorate, and the system has functioned pretty well thus far, what then will be the function of the governors sent by the President from Windhoek? Are we creating a dangerous practice of two centres of power, one accountable to the people and the other to the President, the one elected by the people yet junior to the one appointed by the President?It seems as if right now there is a leadership that is preoccupied with the question; where from instead of where to? The decision not only removes from the people the right to choose, but discourages them from internalising the values of democracy, good governance, accountability. It is a leadership that is not creating opportunities for people, especially young people, to emulate those who are good and positive role models. Puppets, however progressive they might consider themselves, cannot be positive role models for the youth. The continuous recycling of so-called heroes, who, in the true sense of the word are zeros, can only turn the youth away from aspiring to serve the nation in the future. In fact, many of the people who are now stomping the ground as political leaders are not even politicians-they are appointees of someone who might have had the best intentions, but they are not stirred as leaders themselves and as a result they cannot serve the nation as they ought to, but live in fear of being replaced and of losing their material positions. At best this denies the people in the regions the opportunity to participate meaningfully and influence leadership and policymaking. What is also very sad is the fact that some of the new governors are good citizens who are not politicians, and who now have to fight political battles they never chose!One thing is certain: there is no way that the Namibian citizens in the region will put up with this practice beyond this election. This usurping of powers from them will undoubtedly become one of the vexing issues in the next elections. The big loser here is the ruling party, Swapo, that is undoing its own noble legacy as the people’s liberation movement. Swapo was the victor first by bringing freedom and independence, then the vanguard of the will of the people; now becoming the villain by squandering the moral and political capital that it has acquired over such a long period of time and through hard sacrifice. It is just a matter of time before the ordinary people will realize that they have been taken for a ride and say: ‘nothing about us without us!’* Joseph Diescho is the Director and Head of International Relations and Partnerships Directorate at the University of South Africa (Unisa) in Pretoria and Honorary Professor of Governmental and Political Studies at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth.

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