The principle of early nominations of candidates for the top four positions in Swapo before the party’s congress end of November as espoused by Swapo Party Youth League is legitimate.
SPYL reasons that the party must manage the electoral process properly and avoid a repeat of 2004 when an acrimonious period ensued in the party after the hotly contested elections for the party’s presidential candidate. The race was in the end won by Hifikepunye Pohamba, the current President.
According to SPYL secretary, Elijah Ngurare, the decision to have early nominations at the Central Committee level is meant to prevent internal discontent and to ensure maximum unity.
In this regard, the SPYL Central Committee is calling on the party’s Politburo and Central Committee to exhaust all the internal electoral processes and to provide the party membership with a list of preferred candidates for the top four positions in the party, that is the President, Vice President, Secretary General and Deputy Secretary General.
It is our submission that the call by the SPYL is plausible in more ways than the reason given by the SPYL, that of ensuring unity.
Firstly, political parties in Namibia have the tendency to portray a false image of being democratic when many of them are only democratic in name.
Parties have failed to internalise democracy let alone internally practice it in an open and transparent manner. Needless to say democracy dictates that party business and elections in particular not only be free and fair but also transparent.
The early nomination of candidates as proposed by the SPYL would thus allow congress delegates and the population in general to scrutinise those being elected in their name.
It would avail an opportunity to party members to deliberate on each candidate and what they stand for. Candidates for party positions at the coming congress will form the core leadership of the country when all is said and done and hence, Namibians and Swapo Party members in particular, need to know in advance those vying for positions.
The race for positions in the party has to be open and not tightly controlled. After all, that is what democracy is all about. It is about the freedom to stand for positions and to be elected to those positions in a free and transparent contest.
Equally, those vying for positions should have something to offer to those electing them. In this instance, potential candidates for the top positions in Swapo apart from meeting party requirements must satisfy the Swapo electorate and that of the country in general that they possess the right credentials to lead (not just struggle credentials and Swapo membership cards). They must engage the electorate and convince them that they are the right candidates for the positions.
Gone are the days when parties would impose candidates on the people.
Today’s electorate is different from that of yester-year.
It is inquisitive and far more intelligent to accept impositions.
The SPYL is therefore right – free the names of preferred candidates ahead of the congress. Waiting until the congress before unveiling the names of candidates amounts to ambushing the electorate and that is not good for democracy.
People or congress delegates in this instance have to be informed about those vying for positions in order to make informed and intelligent choices at the congress.
Democracy and transition are better managed when there is free debate and openness, however difficult that may be.