The year that was Domestic Politics in Namibia 2011

This is the first part of an overview summarising some of the events during 2011.

THE competition for the succession of the head of state emerged as a prominent political feature during the year, which produced hardly any surprises. The results of the last parliamentary elections remained contested in a prolonged legal battle in the courts. Poverty remained a challenge and government responded to the high unemployment rate by introducing a new three-year capital investment programme as a massive employment scheme.The disputed elections for the National Assembly, which took place at the end of November 2009, kept the legal system busy. On 14 February the High Court dismissed the claim of electoral fraud initiated by nine opposition parties for substantial want of evidence, but the ruling at the same time expressed strong concern that the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) had failed to maintain a satisfactory state of affairs in organising the elections. On 9 March the applicants noted their appeal against the judgment to the Supreme Court but failed to submit any record with the registrar within the stipulated three months. Judgment of the appeal was originally reserved for 5 October, when the Supreme Court announced that the merits of the case would only be considered at a later stage. The legal wrangles were at year’s end pending for over two years without a final settlement.Meanwhile, politics continued as kind of business as usual, with no initiatives of opposition parties of any noteworthy challenge or significant impact able to challenge the dominance of Swapo under a de facto one-party rule. In the light of the mediocrity among opposition parties, often more engaged in internal squabbles than representing meaningful alternative policy, one was tempted to modify a saying that Swapo did not need friends with enemies like this. Hence policy debates and internal struggles in Swapo and with its affiliated allies such as the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW) remained of more interest than any other political discussions.The succession race for the country’s next head of state to be elected in late 2014 for a term in office from March 2015 unfolded with two most prominent competing rivals in the arena. Minister of Trade and Industry Hage Geingob and the Minister of Justice Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, the party’s deputy president and secretary general respectively, emerged as the most obvious and ambitious candidates. Their ambitions triggered, despite repeated denials, some early lobbying and public speculations about possible factionalism. This provoked the party president and head of state Hifikepunye Pohamba to intervene at the party’s central committee meting on 19 November. He appointed a probe team to investigate allegations of a smear campaign between the two frontrunners, who he blamed of divisive politics creating bad blood in the party.Other potential competitors for his succession mentioned were the party stalwart and lands minister Jerry Ekandjo and the foreign minister Uutoni Nujoma, son of the first head of state. Pohamba warned them to avoid similar tensions than those during his nomination as the presidential candidate in 2004, which resulted in the break away of a Swapo faction and the establishment of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) in 2007.According to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s good governance index released in early October, Namibia ranked number 6 out of 53 African countries. The Foundation observed, however, that during the last five years (2006 to 2010) governance in the country had worsened.The controversy around the repatriation of skulls from Germany as a reminiscence of the genocide more than a century earlier on culminated in a spectacular public outburst of the Minister of Youth, National Service, Sport and Culture, Kazenambo Kazenambo, who had been the head of delegation for repatriating the skulls.In response to criticism over the excessive financial expenses created to fund a large delegation, published in a newspaper on 11 November, he called for a press conference on 16 November. Enraged over the issue, he tore apart the newspaper with the report provoking his anger, called the journalist a ‘bloody boer’ with former affiliations to the South African army and threatened that the patience of black Namibians had run out with regard to the colonial mentality surfacing in such criticism without own contributions to reconciliation.With reference to the continued disproportional ownership of land by commercial white farmers he suggested that the constitution could be put aside if the whites would scratch too deep.While the media and parts of the local community reacted strongly to this apparent lack of diplomacy, the condemnations seemed to underestimate the event as an indicator of the growing frustration over the insensible self-righteousness often displayed by a privileged minority ignorant with regard to the feelings of the formerly colonised majority. Given the continued scandalous discrepancies between the haves and the have-nots, as well as the humiliating experience of the minister during his visit to Germany, such emotional outburst should be put into a context indicative of the lack of progress with regard to national reconciliation.A public outcry marked the year over the fact that hundreds of destitute of all ages made a living by regularly waiting for expired food delivered to the dumping grounds outside of Windhoek and other towns. When policy makers pleaded ignorance over the shocking reality they were accused by the local media of being out of touch with reality. Poverty was a common feature. According to World Bank statistics Namibia ranked as higher middle-income country with the highest degree of poverty in the world.Poverty and unemployment were also considered as root causes for the high suicide rates especially in the rural Northern region and a dramatic rate of baby dumping. The director general of the National Planning Commission (NPC) announced on 23 November that the gap between the haves and the have-nots was higher in 2009/10 than in 1993/94. The quarterly report of the Bank of Namibia for September confirmed that there was no poverty reduction since independence. The government continued nonetheless to dismiss any demands for the introduction of a Basic Income Grant (BIG), promoted since a few years by a local civil society alliance.In striking contrast, government purchased during the year a new fleet of Mercedes Benzes for top ranking officials, a new jet and two state-of-the-art S600L Mercedes Benzes for the president, while a battery of E-Class Mercs remained on the shopping list for ministers and deputy ministers. The leaders of the Swapo Youth League openly criticized the shopping spree in mid-October as misplaced priorities. More than opposition politics, the frustration of the ordinary people over the lack of delivery by their elected leaders to ease their struggle for survival could emerge as a political challenge for Swapo in the years to come.* Henning Melber is Executive Director of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden and co-editor of the annually published ‘Africa Yearbook’, for which this text has been drafted. A son of German immigrants, he joined Swapo in 1974.