The announcement by the Popular Democratic Movement that it will launch its election manifesto this weekend signals a crucial moment on the election calendar.

The PDM has since descended on the Zambezi region capital Katima Mulilo for its congress, which kicks off tomorrow.

By Wednesday, delegates from different parts of the country had already started arriving to partake in the congress.

On Tuesday, posters of the party’s top five leaders below party president McHenry Venaani went viral on different social media platforms as the push for PDM’s top six leaders to retain their positions unopposed climaxed, something that Venaani did not take lightly.

All in all, PDM faithfuls have had a relatively healthy campaign anchored on promises those vying for office are preaching. 

However, 72 hours in politics seems like eternity. It remains to be seen if PDM will emerge united post-congress, or like others before them, divided and wounded like a buffalo that has just escaped a scathing lion’s attack.

Another interesting development on the political calendar was sponsored by the ruling Swapo party.

Yesterday, the party dropped a bombshell.

Swapo resolved to hold an extraordinary congress on 19 April 2025 to elect an individual to complete the remainder of late president Hage Geingob’s term. This is despite a legal challenge brought by five disgruntled party members who argue that the party disregarded its own constitution when it failed to hold the congress within three months of Geingob’s demise. Swapo is unfazed by the court challenge and is confident to see it off. Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah remains the party’s presidential candidate.

With just three months until the elections, the ongoing court case, in which five party members sued Swapo for allegedly violating its own constitution, has left many with sleepless nights.

Through their lawyers, Metcalfe Beukes Attorneys, the five party members criticised the central committee’s decision not to hold an extraordinary congress within three months of president Hage Geingob’s demise, “as required by the party’s constitution.”

The five are Reinhold Shipwikineni, Petrus Shituula, Joshua Martins, Erich Shivute and Aina Angula.

But yesterday, prominent lawyer and Swapo politburo member Sisa Namandje allayed those fears.

“Whether few people like it or not, it will never be reversed by anyone,” he told a media conference.

Other interesting developments in the party include the upcoming electoral college, which is known in the Swapo dictionary as the ‘pot’, where 96 individuals to make up its parliamentary list are identified.

Young and old, Swapo members are fighting tooth and nail to secure a spot.

Interesting familiar faces that could make their way back to the legislature should the party garner the requisite votes are former Cabinet ministers Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana and Alpheus! Naruseb, erstwhile Swapo youth secretary Paulus Kapia and diplomat Kaire Mbuende.

While her fate appeared signed and sealed after being sidelined by the Swapo Party Youth League, youthful information minister Emma Theofelus will enter the contest through the National Union of Namibia Workers’ ticket.

According to the union, Theofelus is one of them. On the ground, the Swapo machinery is in full swing. The party has made it clear that it wants to reclaim the two-thirds majority it lost in 2019, while also ensuring that their presidential candidate, Nandi-Ndaitwah or NNN, beats her competition hand down, come 27 November. 

Elsewhere, the National Unity Democratic Organisation is still at sixes and sevens after failing to pull off an elective congress more than a month ago.

Some party members took to the streets recently to vent their frustration, and demand that a congress be held ahead of the national polls. According to the disgruntled members, postponing it indefinitely can be equated to a coup by those in power to retain their positions illegitimately. 

Nudo postponed holding its elective congress more than once due to factional fights and lack of finances.

More so, the campaign mode among all parties has gone into overdrive.

Meanwhile, Panduleni Itula’s Independent Patriots for Change continues criss-crossing the country, moving from village to village to canvass for votes.The party is also in the process of identifying its potential MPs in the next few weeks.

Just last week, Landless People’s Movement leader and chief change campaigner Bernadus Swartbooi took to the streets of the capital one morning. Swartbooi was seen distributing information brochures, spreading the message of the “orange army”.

Similarly, Affirmative Repositioning (AR) Movement head honcho Job Amupanda and his “red stars” have been all over, canvassing for support.

If anything, AR believes it has done enough as a movement, with limited resources, to change the lives of ordinary Namibians.

In sum, the political theatre has not been short of activity in recent times, as each political party and aspiring independent candidates criss-cross the country, in attempts to convince Namibian voters they are the best candidate or organisation to take the country to the ‘Promised Land’.

Namibian voters are indeed spoilt for choices as far as the Presidential and National Assembly elections are concerned.