By Professor Joseph Diescho
On 9 February 2014 the Land of the Brave celebrated the 24th anniversary of one of the most momentous acts in the continent’s post-independence political history – the adoption of a Republican constitution, crafted by the country’s own democratically elected leaders from various political parties for the first time in post-independence Afrika!
This year the country goes to the polls for the fifth time to elect the sixth Parliament and the third President of the Republic.
This time there will be more voters in the queues who were not even there during the first democratic elections in 1989.
This time will also be about real succession in the leaderships of most parties, including the ruling party. This time will see more casualties in the leaderships due to three factors, (a) the old guard that must give way to the young, (b) whoever emerges victorious will be required to turn to the future and stop recycling the same ‘nothing to write home about’ cabinet ministers and use merit to appoint men and women to execute the country’s laws and (c) tackle the 50/50 gender and zebra balancing expectations.
On the occasion of welcoming the staff in his office, Prime Minister Geingob, in his characteristic style of getting to the point, lamented the inefficiency in the nation’s public service and urged those who are paid by tax payers’ monies to pull up their socks and stop using the politics of struggle as a license to public office.
By way of affirming the solid foundation of Namibia’s constitutional democracy, the Prime Minister educated the audience that tribalism and attendant discomforts now rearing their ugly heads were not there in the first 10 to 15 years of independence and self-rule in this Land of the Brave where everybody is fearful of somebody or something or just fearful.
The Prime Minister was right. Tribalism, ethnic prejudice and preference, nepotism, racism, attitude of entitlement are visible in the country’s body politic, all indicative of the reality that in the latter 10 plus years we had retrogressed by making one step forward and three steps backwards in the areas that really matter if we are to advance significantly towards our proclaimed, albeit amorphous grand Vision 2030.
In all fairness the process of retrogression crept into our national politics during and following the Presidential 3rd term discussions that caused essential parts of what was becoming a functioning system to come unstuck.
The ruling party became entangled in the issues of succession politics so much so that it took its eyes off the ball and the project of nation building got sacrificed on the altar of blind and opportunistic party loyalty.
The corridors were filled with self-serving fear of the Founding President, and the talk of who was to be next out. In this climate the values that fueled the liberation struggle for so long were replaced with the politics of Us versus Them, comrade versus enemy/suspect, back-biting for the sake of expediency and political-economic survival oiled by an unhelpful anti-democratic and anti-intellectual psychosis.
In this scramble for security the vision of One Namibia, One Nation suffered. The poor public servants and by extension the unsuspecting voters got in harm’s way and became victims of the politics of the belly.
In this state of affairs it is difficult to focus on the interests of the nation where voters are seen as
voting cows in the game of
one up-manship with no clear vision, no courage and no stewardship for the nation’s meager
resources.
This year is likely to see more of this ‘boogeyman politics’ and fear mongering.
This year might be the worst year for opposition parties that seem to be in disarray and the beginning of a de-facto ‘One Party’ state, through no fault of the ruling party, but due to incoherence and lack of alternative policy leadership within the opposition in general.
It is therefore incumbent upon citizens to be informed so that they do not fall prey as cannon fodder and succumb to the party that brings more meat and drinks to the rallies, but call upon their leaderships of party, church, NGO and traditional communities to clarify not where the country has been in the last 130 years since the Berlin Conference but where it is going, and insist that the process be free and fair so that they are the ones to anoint the best leaders of the people and stewards of and for the nation’s resources.
It will behoove all political parties who will submit their manifestos as documents to be given the tender to govern the nation for the next five years to reconsider their ways and place the interests of the nation above their parochial individual and party interests.
Political parties are mere vehicles by which like-minded leaders seek and obtain endorsement from the voting citizens to run the affairs on their behalf as the most peaceful and stable country in Afrika.
This means the political parties as such have NO affairs of their own outside of those of the citizenry who entrust them with the fortuitous responsibility to serve, not to be served, and not to eat on behalf of the people.
Whereto now?
In the last 24 years, solid foundations have been laid. As the most peaceful and stable country in Afrika today, let us hope, and indeed trust that this year will usher into our political life a new political culture with a work ethic: that of better and quality services, responsive and accountable leadership in all spheres of the state and the desired unity to soldier on as we build and refurbish our nation on its
gallant march to Vision 2030.
This has to be a year of new beginnings, to move at a faster pace towards a Namibia wherein the Zebra Nation with its strands, has better life and equal opportunity for all who live in it, as it, lurches towards its rendezvous with history and destiny; when we as a nation, small but powerful and tone-setting, shall be at peace with ourselves, at peace with our neighbours and at peace with the rest of the world.
Professor Joseph Diescho is a Namibian academic, writer and a political analyst.