Ten years ago, Tobie Aupindi, then a businessman before he became a Member of Parliament, had a prediction of the future of the youth inside Swapo. He concluded that the future Swapo Party Youth League leadership will have no choice but to be docile given what had happened to our militant and radical leadership. At the time, the Swapo political elite had successfully sought, though contested until the last bullet, to quarantine and liquidate the radical voices that agitated for a radical policy shift to the left inside the party. 

As spokesperson of the youth league, I was responsible for articulating and mobilising the youth and society on the needed radical policy shift championed by the league.  The results were that we were suspended and expelled from the ruling party in 2014 and 2015, respectively. In our place, youth leaders seen as moderate and timid were installed to ensure that the ruling elites in control were not challenged and their interests disrupted.  

Tobie saw this in advance. The youth league never recovered since. What exists is a shadow of its former self. Those who disagree must tell us what national agenda and/or issue the Swapo Party Youth League has championed over the past 10 years. 

The radical policy shift for the masses of our people had to be pursued elsewhere. Our departure saw the youth reverting back to the factory setting of the General Zombie Tendency (GZT)—a tendency that expects one to see nothing, say nothing, and do nothing but do as told. 

To teach the ruling elites modern politics, we went to court and won our case against both the suspension and expulsion. We were four; two went back into the Swapo fold while the other two continued with the Affirmative Repositioning (AR). The AR movement, apart from emerging as the third largest political party in the recent disputed and Zanu-PF-interfered elections, has over the years emerged as a bastion of a radical policy shift and real politics of emancipation. 

When faced with any policy challenge or when they encounter any corruption or misdeeds in the government or the public sector, Namibians know only one place: AR – sometimes ignoring the Anti-Corruption Commission. 

Even Swapo members of Parliament and government officials, including diplomats and pastors, prefer to report the wrong to the AR movement. Indeed, despite the love for your mother, when sick, one prefers to go to a doctor. 

The successes of the AR movement did not end the GZT inside the ruling party, as the Swapo elite continued taking our country from one crisis to another. With our departure, no one was left to challenge the wrong inside.  Against the express provisions of their constitution, then Swapo president Hifikepunye Pohamba postured to have transferred presidential powers from himself to the late president Hage Geingob, who started calling himself Swapo president.  

Apart from a few, like Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, Swapo docile members did not challenge this gentleman power arrangement, where presidential power was ‘skeifed’ and/or handed over as if it was a glass of Tombo. 

Underground, and at the back of this ‘Tombo-glass’ sharing-like deal, was the Mo Ibrahim award. President Pohamba was seemingly required to surrender all powers to get millions. He receives these millions every year until today. 

While these may appear like Swapo internal issues, a close reading will demonstrate how Swapo’s organised chaos snowballs and contaminates our public space and institutions. Used to constitutional violations, distortions, and manipulations for sectarian gain and knowing that docile members would not challenge them, Swapo elites became comfortable and graduated this chaos from Swapo to national.  When president Hage Geingob died, and his death was announced on 4 February 2024, then Vice President Nangolo Mbumba was manipulatively announced as President instead of Acting President. 

Article 34 (1) was manipulated and accorded opportunistic interpretation. Docile Namibians did not challenge this, including lawyers and their associations, beyond WhatsApp status complaints. In contrast, salivating individuals seeking government and public enterprise favours took the stage, writing waffling and vacuous articles. To justify these deeds, express constitutional provisions were shockingly referred to as mere “semantics.” Having succeeded with the manipulation of the national constitution where an acting president became a substantive president without resistance, Swapo returned to rape its own constitution. 

An extraordinary congress, expressly provided for in the constitution to take place within three months following a death of a president, was cancelled, citing extraterrestrial considerations such as illusive concepts of ‘unity.’ They faced little opposition apart from peripheral voices who went to court and were watered down by a coalition of the judiciary and the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN). 

Having facilitated the Pohamba-Geingob Tombo-glass-like deal on ‘skeifing’ presidential powers outside the constitution and having become president dubiously while he is an acting president, Mbumba understood that with docile citizens both inside and outside Swapo, he can do as he pleases. 

When faced with chaotic elections, Mbumba continued acting outside the constitution and with impunity for Swapo’s electoral advantage. He chaotically and unconstitutionally added two voting days to the 27 November 2024 disputed elections. 

He opened voting for a few and closed it for many. For the Khomas region, with close to 300 000 registered voters, only one polling station was made available. Okatyali constituency, with less than 2 000 registered voters, had four polling stations.  While the reasons remain a mystery, the underground tactic, as was the case of Mo Ibrahim and the extraordinary Congress, was naked for all to see. Mbumba did what he did knowing well that docile citizens would not do anything. 

With few exceptions, the Judiciary is in their handbags. Mbumba sees nothing wrong with the chaotic elections. Given an opportunity, knowing how docile Namibians are, Mbumba and ECN will again repeat and subject us to a chaotic election.  With the new methods, unless something extraordinary occurs, we must be prepared for our politics and institutions to be the same if not worse than those of Zimbabwe. Swapo is officially ZANU-PF Junior. 

The key lessons for 2024 that all Namibians must internalise is that impunity (taking actions knowingly that there will be no punishment or consequences) is strengthened by docile citizens. In response, we need to develop the necessary capacities and capabilities to detect, fight and defeat the political elites who over the years have taken our country from one crisis to another. 

We need to detect these corrupt deeds in advance so that we can immediately develop strategies and tactics to fight these people and their actions. 

We should not only fight for the sake of newspaper headlines, but to ensure that we defeat all these evils. 

The impunity we experienced and continue to experience cannot continue as the consequences, for our children, are too ghastly to contemplate. It must end. Without the necessary capacities and capabilities to detect, fight and defeat, we will continue to be zombified and our country will be shared and transferred between the elites like a glass of Tombo. 

Let’s lick our 2024 wounds, and retreat to regroup with a promise that never, and never again, shall we be subjected to these things again. Let’s detect, fight and defeat impunity for the motherland and the future of our children.