Namibia’s choice: Stability vs radical change

Image contributed: Electoral Commission of Namibia

By Johnathan Beukes

Given Namibia’s increasing international importance and considering its strategic location, its standing in the region, and its potential newfound oil wealth, the southern African nation’s Presidential and National Assembly elections this week will be watched keenly across the planet.

Wednesday’s elections are unfolding against a backdrop of shifting political dynamics, both internationally and within Southern Africa.

While the focus in recent weeks has hinted at the possible strong-arm tactics or even interference by regional players, Namibians, especially the youth, have been at least urged to vote in their interest.

Currently, new political, ideological, economic, and military alliances are being formed.

These are shifts never seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the collapse of the Soviet-led communist bloc, and a new world order driven by capitalist interests.

 

Crossroads

In this week’s elections, Namibian voters have a mammoth task: consider which model or ideological bloc between the global north and the rest of the planet their state should follow.

Both ballot papers, the Presidential and National Assembly, are crowded for a nation with just over three million people.

The over 1.4 million eligible Namibian voters will decide who among the 15 Presidential candidates will succeed President Nangolo Mbumba at State House and who, among the 22 political parties, will occupy the most parliamentary seats come March 2025.

These elections come as former liberation movements and long-time ruling parties in Southern Africa have seen their reigns and might waning or coming to an end, as the region’s young people yearn for change.

The liberation struggle party, Swapo, the only ruling party Namibians have known since the dawn of political independence in 1990, is staring at a glut of opposition parties who have been energised by the recent seismic shifts in politics in the region.

Swapo’s record of high unemployment, lack of housing, its handling of the genocide reparations negotiations, its insistence on prioritising legislation against LQBTQI+ rights despite a court defeat, its involvement in several corruption scandals, and a growing hunger crisis could be among the harbingers leaving those at the helm with sleepless nights.

 

How it started

However, the 57% win in the National Assembly Elections in the first democratic elections supervised by the United Nations in 1989 was the lowest the party mustered in National Assembly elections in the last 34 years.

The party has since dominated Namibian politics and elections at every level.

In 1994, five years after the country’s historic first elections, Swapo defeated all and sundry by garnering 73% of the vote.

The party also scored a 76% landslide in 1999. In 2004, facing erstwhile stalwart Hidipo Hamutenya’s Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), the party managed to garner 75% of the vote. In 2009, the party again scored 75% of the vote.

In 2014, the party scored a whopping 80% of the vote but managed only 65% of the vote in 2019, under its usual two-thirds majority, which it used to change the country’s constitution to allow for a bigger parliament in 2014.

It has since lost several regional and local authorities to opposition parties.

However, Swapo has taken criticism of its rule in its stride and focused on flirting with the youth by paying local and international musicians to perform at its rallies. This has drawn huge numbers of young people to its campaign events.

The party has travelled extensively in the region and abroad before the elections to solicit support for its onslaught. The party’s secretary general, Sophia Shaningwa, asked a New Era journalist who sent her and told her she was nosey and meddling in her business when asked why she was in Zimbabwe at the time.

With fears of potential political interference rife, experts have urged Namibians to vote in their interest and not succumb to the whims of outside interests.

Lawrence Seretse, a veteran journalist and vice chairperson of the Botswana Editors Forum, believes Namibia is a stable country.

He, however, hastened to note that this election will test its trademark stability.

“Namibia, like any other country, isn’t safe from external powers. The country remains vulnerable [to outside influence] through diplomatic channels, investment, and covert tactics like disinformation campaigns that will seek to stray public opinion or influence decision-makers,” he said.

But Seretse said Namibia has demonstrated strong democratic institutions and practices.

 

Your choice

He urged Namibian youth, who make up over 70% of the electorate in 2024, to vote in their interest.

“They hold the power,” said Seretse, who was once arrested for sedition in Botswana during Ian Khama’s reign.

Admire Mare, an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, said, “Unfortunately, Namibia is not immune from external political influence. We have already seen the role of former liberation parties like ZANU-PF in the Namibia context. This template was used in the recent Mozambican elections.”

He was quick to point to Namibia’s newfound gas, oil, and hydrogen reserves that are going to power the next stage of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

In recent years, Namibia has become an oil exploration hotspot along its southern coast.

“So, geopolitical actors like the US and China have a stake in terms of influencing who is going to become the next leader in Namibia,” said Mare.

Influence

Windhoek-based political scientist Hans-Christian Mahnke is of the opinion that China has major influence in the country and the region.

“Access means influence,” he said.

“They have funds as a state and as the communist party, and they seem to be open to supporting whoever seems willing to dance to their tune and in line with their interests,” Mahnke asserted.

Both the Chinese and American embassies could not comment on Sunday.

Mahnke added that elections require voters to make informed decisions.

“As a voter, one would need to look at the last government and see what the party in power did over the past five years. How do I judge a party’s ability to deliver on their promises and manifestos if they have never been in the governing position? This needs trust and one’s own critical, honest reflection as a voter. Sadly, desperation and hope seem to also blur the abilities of voters to see what is realistic in these promises and what is not,” he said.

 

How it’s going

Last month, voters in neighbouring Botswana sent the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) packing over anger brought about by economic stagnation and perceived corruption.

The party had ruled comfortably for 58 years.

Meanwhile, April 2024 saw South Africans unseat the African National Congress (ANC) and force it into a coalition government, the first since the democratic elections in 1994 that saw Nelson Mandela’s ANC swept to power on a mandate of radical change for the majority black population.

Until then, voting was a foreign luxury for blacks, as they had no right to vote for representatives of their choice.

The fact that both these parties were supported by Zimbabwe’s ruling party had even casual observers note how southern Africans are rejecting the old politics of ageing, lifelong-serving rulers who had overseen massive unemployment and declining living conditions while the cost of living continues to rise in the region.

Zanu PF has dismissed these assertions as malicious.

 

No capacity

The party’s secretary general, Obert Mpofu, in his weekly column in The Sunday Mail newspaper, said the party could not influence electoral outcomes in neighbouring countries.

Mpofu said Zanu PF is a strong political party with a rich history known across the globe for its respect of other countries’ territorial integrity and sovereignty.

“There is no doubt that Zanu PF is a juggernaut, but I feel at times our reach is overestimated. We neither have the capacity nor intention to participate and influence electoral outcomes in any of our neighbouring countries and none of our supporters ever fraudulently acquired identity cards to vote in foreign polls,” said Mpofu.

With the clock ticking, time will tell whose interest Namibians will vote for, as these radical regional changes will have observers sit up and notice with keen interest Namibia’s watershed elections on Wednesday.

 

jjbeukes44@gmail.com

Johnathan Beukes is a freelance journalist.