2018-05-03Staff Report 2 No critical analysis by armchair critics followed “Spy chief sues to gag newspaper” (Frdiay, 13 April 2018) and “Inside China-Namibia deals” (Thursday, 26 April 2018) articles, which appeared as headline news in The Namibian newspaper recently. When will Namibians wake up? The state is captured by Swapo. Never mind the disastrous cabinet reshuffle on 19 March 2018 by President Hage Geingob, which did not cause any seismic disruption in his administration, except to reconfirm that he is not prepared to fight corruption and skullduggery head-on by keeping some cabinet ministers, who are undoubtedly under scrutiny. It is, as usual in Swapo’s political culture, a continuation with the corrupt, evil, and the incompetent. Namibians are hoping for a better deal in 2019. The communities, deprived of basic human securities for daily survival are saying that they need a better deal in 2019. In actual fact, we have several Swapo leaders telling us they have to wait for 2019 to rid themselves of the architect of sleaze. It is in this instance critical that political scientists, if there are still any left, and journalists should make sense of the objective conditions on the ground, and not drivel on it. Geingob made several political errors such as “Namibians are lazy”, “there’s a Winnie Mandela street in Namibia” to hero worshipping many ‘”heroes” in a space of two years in the persons of Robert Mugabe, Winnie Mandela, to as of late Prof. Adedeji Adebayo. The nation is confused. At the slightest moment, for political opportunism, Geingob changes his rhetoric. Suddenly the SONA was dubbed a “youth SONA”. But inside the content, there was hardly any mention of youth enterprise development. In fact, the ministry of higher education says there over 67,000 graduates unemployed. SME Bank collapsed, and culprits are enjoying their millions in “peace and stability” whereas 600 job losses are feared at Langer Heinrich. In Erongo Region, where the Governor Cleophas Mutjavikua tells people that “Namibians’ don’t need land”, which could have led to his summary dismissal elsewhere in the world, there are about 24 fishing companies which have fired fishermen for merely demanding fair pay of their allowances. Swapo abandoned these 4,000 fishermen who are stranded since then. Some of these fishermen have committed suicide, wives left them, and many are homeless and jobless today. And many of these greedy fishing companies donate millions to Swapo for political campaigns. This could be classified as a multifaceted approach to kleptocracy. Our people should realise that this is our problem collectively to resolve by ensuring to deny Swapo a two-thirds majority they seek again for continued looting and arrogance. Granted, the reasons to challenge Geingob strongly are many. Swapo wants to continue governing the country, despite having brought us into this quagmire. Hopefully not many of the party’s MPs will be there after 2019. Namibia is in a mess because of the voting system - a system that favours voting for a party. We all know that the former liberation movement is abusing its position after creating a Leviathan State. This disrespects voters. It’s time for Namibia to be a true democracy. A recent Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index (BTI), which dissects and evaluates the quality of democracy, as well as the market economies and political management of countries, classified us as a “defective democracy”. In fact, I argue that Namibia is a kakistocracy. Kakistocracy is a system of government which is run by the worst and most unscrupulous citizens amongst our midst. That is what Swapo represents at all its levels. MPs are our elected representatives. It is only when we have MPs with constituencies, with each accountable to constituents, that we may expect things to change. MPs will have to answer to their constituents, who can vote them out for looting and other related maladministration. The thievery, scandals and crimes of these unfit kakistocrats will have consequences at the ballot box. Swapo has paralysed the country. Swapo’s kakistocracy is collapsing Namibia. The only alternative is the Landless People’s Movement. Very soon, we shall convene for a Critical Thinking Forum (policy conference) and path a way forward to bring in fresh and cool policies to industrialise our country and create much-needed jobs. Henny H. Seibeb is chief strategist and deputy leader of the Landless People’s Movement (LPM). 2018-05-03Staff Report 2
