Rudolf Gaiseb
Political commentators say voters in the just-concluded elections sent a strong message to political parties that if they do not pull up their socks, their dominance will continue to evaporate or disappear completely.
The 2024 Namibian elections witnessed a fierce fight of political parties trying to remain in Parliament, the fall of some, and the rise of new kids on the block.
“The loss of 12 seats by the ruling party speaks volumes. It is not a joke. It is a serious judgement passed on the ruling party by the voters. And it calls on the party to change the way it operates if it wants to survive an onslaught in the next five years from the opposition.
“Only 10 years ago, the ruling party was sitting very comfortably with the two-thirds majority in Parliament. Now, the ruling party just barely got a simple majority,” political commentator Natjirikasorua Tjirera stated in an interview yesterday.
He said he is not surprised by the loss of the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM)’s 11 seats.
“The votes that the PDM got in 2019, which propelled them to 16 seats, were protest votes that came from supporters of [then independent candidate] Panduleni Itula.
So, when Itula formed a political party of his own, it became very certain that the majority of the PDM votes would go back to him.
PDM and its leadership were oblivious to that obvious fact, and ignored it. And then it worked to their own peril,” he reasoned.
Also describing the results, political commentator Ndumba Kamwanyah said voters opted for new alternatives.
“Unless the new government does something drastic in terms of service delivery, and addressing unemployment issues and corruption, we are going to see the same declined support, more in particular for the ruling party,” he commented.
Winners
When the results were announced on Tuesday evening, the ruling Swapo Party garnered only 51 seats in Parliament, a significant drop of 12 seats from the 63 seats in 2019.
Meanwhile, the Independent Patriots for Change secured 20 seats straight from outside Parliament. Furthermore, the Landless People’s Movement grew from four to five seats in this election.
Newcomers Affirmative Repositioning (AR) obtained six seats.
“The biggest surprise package for me was the AR, which did not invest in conventional campaign methods, running lots of rallies and so on, yet the defeated established political movements,” Tjirera stated.
Nevertheless, the United Democratic Party retained its two seats in the National Assembly.
One seat
While some parties seemingly had bigger losses to count, others managed only to get a single seat in the National Assembly.
Among them are Swanu, the All People’s Party, the Body of Christ Party, the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters, the National Unity Democratic Organisation, the Republic Party and the National Democratic Party, led by Martin ‘Lukato’ Lukato.
“It’s not that they really got support but the formula of how the votes is calculated that helped some of the parties,” Kamwanyah said.
On Lukato’s breakthrough, Tjirera said “a lot of people have not taken him seriously, but the singular belief in himself and his party, his convictions and principles have led and propelled him to Parliament. I really want to see how he will do in Parliament, and how the Namibian people will react to him”.
Goodbyes
The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) fell out of Parliament this time.
The party obtained one seat in 2019.
“They must go back to the drawing board, and read what it means or interpret what this outcome means for them so that they can probably regroup. What has contributed to the smaller parties losing so badly, including RDP, is the dynamics within those parties. They are embroiled in internal divisions – even those that go to a single seat. Those internal divisions made a lot of people not to trust them with the governance,” Kamwanyah emphasised.
Others who did not cut it, falling out of Parliament, include the Action Democratic Movement, Christian Democratic Voice Party, Congress of Democrats, National Empowerment Fighting Corruption, National Patriotic Front of Namibia, United People’s Party and the United People’s Movement.
Principles
Tjirera highlighted that Namibian politics is not based on principles because if it were, “we would have three or four political parties in this country. “The absence of the RDP will not change a lot, because they have not advanced a single policy issue of significance.
“AR, coupled with the LPM, are leftist movements in terms of political ideology: whether they will work together to advance the leftist agenda, I am unsure. But alongside Swanu, headed by former trade unionist Evilastus Kaaronda, you’ve got quite a few well-equipped people on the left of the political divide in Parliament,” Tjirera summed up how things could pan out in the National Assembly for the next five years.