Editorial

The outcome of the November 2019 election challenge, whose judgement was handed down by the Supreme Court this Wednesday, has been met with mixed reactions, and rightly so. 

The effects of climate change are apparent if the consequences of successive debilitating droughts in the entire southern Africa and beyond in recent years are anything to go by.

The news cycle is short, and with so many competing issues, often those who have been at the forefront of holding power to account, such as the media,   struggle to give all challenges the airtime and press space it deserves. 

The January 15 by-elections have come and gone, leaving contestants and political parties to reflect on their performance.

The issue of service delivery is one that remains a hot potato in the public sector, especially at regional and local authority levels. 

The recent Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Namibia, though given a clean bill of health, as they were bereft of violence, no-go areas, harassment and even disruption of political rallies during the election campaign period, sadly witnessed the spectre of social media being hijacked for malicious purposes by social media users.

The campaigns leading to Wednesday’s Presidential and National Assembly Elections and the polling itself are a clear indication the democratic culture has fully entrenched itself in Namibia. Multi-party elections where political parties freely engage in the contestation of competing ideas, trying to woo voters on what they will do once voted into power, has become an integral part of our way of life. 

There is no doubt that our fairly young democracy has been put to the test in the run-up to the Presidential and National Assembly elections billed for next week. In any democratic dispensation, elections are classified as a central feature of democracy.

The international fishing kickback scandal implicating two former ministers has set tongues wagging this week, and rightly so.

Namibians are by nature law-abiding, but hardened repeat offenders, murderers whose hands drip with the blood of innocent victims, rapists, looters of public coffers, unrepentant burglars, cattle thieves are holding sway and riding roughshod over the bulk of a cowed population.