MOST opposition parties fielded a candidate in the presidential election, each wasting their time and money, wishfully thinking that they have a chance to emerge victorious. Most, for whatever reasons, completely ignored the signs of reality that they did not have the necessary mass appeal to go to State House. 

The smart thing they could have done was to select and rally behind a most likely candidate that could potentially get them too close to the State House, as the margins between most and the top two contenders are just too wide.

That through such a unified strategy and approach, they could have potentially achieved a presidential run-off, which in all probability could have gone either way. Swapo, for what it is worth, is a historic brand, and any attempt to take power from it should be approached from a very serious and strategic point of view, as any other attempt to the contrary will be a complete waste of time and money.

National Assembly 

First and foremost, Swapo is a very formidable, highly complicated, complex, and intriguing political organisation that will not just hand power to the Namibian House it fought so hard for over 60 years, just like that, at least not in the next five to 10 or even 15 years.

Swapo is a former liberation movement that will not just budge in the apparent name of democracy. Democracy is for the naive who think and believe just because it should be.

That is not how nature in certain parts of the world works. One needs to be very smart and tactical in unity with others to completely wrest power from Swapo’s very powerful grip.

Botswana and Zambia could be very good case studies for the opposition to critically analyse.

It is hence a very strong possibility that Swapo saw the great fire of possible change from a distance, particularly after the South African and Botswana elections, and thereafter prepared itself very smartly and tactically by all means necessary to defend its political interests.

The Swapo Party subsequently consulted widely and far (China and Zimbabwe) to eventually cement and secure its political interest.

Opposition parties hence need to be united, much tougher in their pursuit of power, smarter, tactical, agile, highly committed, and determined, among other things, if they are to be very serious in attempting to wrest power from Swapo.

It is never ever going to be a walk in the park just because they talk nice, recite nice, smile nice, motivate nice, and sound nice, among other things, to just want to take power away from Swapo. Before I continue, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the new kids on the block to parliament, particularly the Independent Patriots for Change, Affirmative Repositioning, and National Democratic Party, among others.

I am very positive their respective presence and contributions will be greatly appreciated and felt by others. In retrospect, the 2024 National Assembly election has a lot of controversies that might need deeper analysis than meets the eye.

The particular decision that allowed one to vote anywhere in the country had greater implications that subsequently distorted the regional voting outcomes, as a large number of voters could easily move from one region to another or from one constituency to another, simply to vote. This, in my view, might have had a significant negative impact, especially on the smaller political parties that were looking to depend on their traditional strongholds to attain a certain election outcome.

With that said, Swapo Party and, to an extent, AR did relatively well in most regions, particularly those that are traditionally strongholds for the Landless People’s Movement, IPC, Popular Democratic Movement, and All People’s Party. Through that, AR has now become the third largest political force in the land, outperforming well-established and entrenched political entities such as PDM, LPM, the National Unity Democratic Organisation, and APP, among others. I will therefore strongly suggest that interested political parties investigate this issue and amend the law that voters in national elections strictly vote where they are registered.

IPC’s performance 

I think IPC, despite all the clear signs before them, completely ignored and perhaps forgot that they are dealing with a former liberation movement which is not necessarily going to play by the rules.

To remove a formidable political organisation such as Swapo from power was not going to be a walk in the park. What glitters is not always gold. For instance, bigger political parties spent a lot of money on rallies, T-shirts, caps, posters, TV adverts, billboards, food, security, transport, accommodation, propaganda yet still performed poorly. Swapo and IPC had massive rallies, yet their election performance reveals contrasting results.

Swapo subsequently lost 12 seats in parliament while IPC, which had a much higher expectation, managed in its first attempt, to get 20 seats in the National Assembly.

Meanwhile, others like AR, which garnered six parliamentary seats, basically just used their cellphones on social media, exposed corruption accordingly and still outperformed well established and resourced political entities. 

ECN’s shortcomings

The era of the electronic voting machines was a terrible experience in the Namibian political landscape that even the courts had to throw them out of our political playing field with immediate effect.

The Electoral Commission of Namibia for years ignored various sensible calls from political parties and others to ensure that a paper trail was effected.

That was the first big bite from ECN, which as a solution, led to the reintroduction of ballot papers into our political landscape.

The ballot papers were subsequently used in the last regional and local government elections which as a surprise ended the dominance of the Swapo party’s hold on most regions and various significant constituencies.

Of significant note was the Swapo’s subsequent losses in various local by-elections to the opposition parties.

From such critical observations and particularly towards the reregistration of eligible voters countrywide for the 2024 Presidential and National Assembly elections, a decision by ECN probably in consultation with certain stakeholders, was made that new eligible registered voters can vote anywhere they find themselves in the country. On face value it seems a brilliant and sensible idea to embrace as it brings about voting convenience, but a more detailed analysis would reveal its true detrimental negative effect to the very socio political survival base of smaller parties whose natural strong hold bases will be significantly threatened. That idea by electoral design is the elephant in the room that completely and subsequently led to the electoral chaos, mess, confusion and disillusionment of our political masses and landscape in all critical aspects. This is the second most significant bite that the ECN instituted on the Namibian voting masses, that as a result, could have medium to long term voter apathy in future national elections.

The damage from these particular elections are currently immeasurable and will definitely have an impact on future elections. 

Public confidence and trust in the ECN has been severely eroded and damaged and will be extremely very difficult to restore, particularly if the current top management remains in place and no significant and effective corrective measures on voter registration and voting methodology and technical efficacy are restored. 

With such a likely scenario set to continue, the possibility of the biggest political party maintaining national leadership status quo is most likely to be maintained until Jesus comes. 

*Pendapala Hangala is a Namibian socio economic and political analyst.