Urgent Urgent Urgent: Confidential Memo to the President of the Republic

Attention: President of the Republic
From: Citizens wanting to be led coalition
Subject: please lead us!

Mr President, I hope that this finds you well despite the arduous election campaign. Mr President may also ask why I am dropping this confidential memo at this odd time of the week. But I must admit to you that I have never been under such an emotional rollercoaster over the past 19 years of freedom as I have been under the past five years of which you have been Head of State. I was excited to see you, the moral man entering State House. I have been angry on many occasions, sad on others, but oftentimes worried, not about you per se, but importantly about our motherland. Let me also hasten to add that there have been those rare moments of pity. Right now is one of those moments when I feel a sense of pity, perhaps compassion about the difficult position Namibians imposed on you. Mr President, you may have read that one of the earliest attempts to understand leadership through a political psychological perspective was a collaboration in the late 1920s between Sigmund Freud and William C Bullitt on a controversial psychological study of President Woodrow Wilson. But you may have noted that it is Harold Lasswell’s ground-breaking ‘Psychopathology and Politics’ which suggested that leaders are largely motivated by private, almost pathological conflicts, which are often rationalised in terms of actions taken in the public interest. Be that as it may Mr President, I simply don’t believe that you share this view since you were hardly interested in the supreme office of the land. Unlike your role model, the founding President who rose above the herd instinct of conventional morality and achieved self-mastery, you would agree without hesitation with me that the highest job in the land was foisted on you. Mr President, on closer inspection, you would also want to agree with me that our country is crying out for leadership at the highest level, your level. When this statement is posed, you may look around you with bewilderment and try to find solutions in the arcane world of the collective leadership enterprise of Swapo. Why am I saying all these things Mr President on the eve of an election that you are likely to win? Exactly the point, I am saying this simply because you are likely to win the presidential election. But the Republic has reached a tipping point with regard to leadership. Mr President, Dr Elijah Ngurare is still a cadre of the party of which you are still the President. I am sure that he is also aware that you are still the Head of State. If he is still so, ordinarily the leader of the youth league ought to treat both these offices that you occupy with a sense of respect and dignity. Mr President, you may have heard and read that Dr Ngurare last week called implicitly on you to recall our permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr Kaire Mbuende. Additionally, the said cadre of your party also intimated that your judgment with regard to your appointments in the highest office of the land have not been what they ought to be. The senior appointments in the cabinet secretariat and your immediate advisors are not who and what they ought to be. Only three individuals ought to provide you with policy and political advice: the Vice President, the Secretary General and the Deputy Secretary General. I am not too sure if Mr President would call on the youth leader of your party to State House and discuss why he made such a sweeping and stinging public attack on your judgment as Head of State and as President of Swapo, especially on the eve of an election. Mr President, you would not disagree with me when I argue that when there is a vacuum in a system, other forces will emerge to fill that vacuum. History has shown that these forces will not necessarily act in the best interests of a system. The fact that leaders representing important wings of your political party are openly questioning your judgment highlight this frightening phenomenon about power vacuums in a political system.I am hesitant to make a hasty conclusion by saying that such demands from these wings of the party are the result of the immobilism that has become symptomatic of government under your watch. Even so, you may agree with me that immobilism, which in essence is nothing but political paralysis stemming from the absence of a strong executive. Mr President, the few books that I have consulted on leadership suggest that ‘LEADERSHIP’ is about influence exerted over a larger group or body or personal qualities that fosters obedience. However, the balkanisation and the fragmentation of the political unit Swapo, of which you are the head into a patchwork of antagonistic entities is indicative of a disturbing trend which is likely to become rude in your second term. Mr President, you are more aware than many of us about Chapter 5 of our supreme law of the land, the Constitution: it outlines at length what you ought to stand for, particularly Article 32 of the said chapter confers important powers on you. Mr President, as the appointing authority, please tell us as your followers that the ambassadors and representatives, including the advisors that you have duly appointed under the constitution enjoy the support of the office you hold. Mr President, please tell us that the ministers that you have appointed in line with your powers still enjoy your support irrespective of the regular onslaught on the part of various wings of your party. In conclusion Mr President, accept this humble plea and please, please lead us. Best regardsAlfredo Tjiurimo HengariCitizens Wanting To Be Led Coalition