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Home / Pursuing inner party democracy, ethics and succession
Pursuing inner party democracy, ethics and succession
2017-09-22Staff Report 2 Politics is often described as adversarial by nature, where evil and sinister business is seen as a game within a game. Despicable, sleazy and treacherous immoral conduct towards one another has become a critical part of the moral fabric in our system – a sad state. It is starting to feel like we live in a time where being moral is deemed immoral ,lack of integrity and courteous behaviour towards one another suggest that character development is not important in our organisation. What then motivates us to be leaders in our society if we are deprived of the enjoyment of being civilised towards one another? Many a time one hears voices imploring us to invest in the youth, the leaders of tomorrow. Those vested with the knowledge and experience of our forefathers have forgotten their duties to impart knowledge and wisdom to the younger generation - deliberately avoiding planning for succession, seeking to be in remunerated environments in perpetuity. Namibia is part of the international community and we are judged and compete on international level. It thus requires our society to be shaped into a progressive developing trajectory that redresses our shortcomings on competent implementation and critical and analytical thinking. Remember 26 August 1966? We need another Tanga Convention to launch an attack on the cancer worm that is making sure that we are degenerating from our values, norms and standards. Statistically, other organisations that were faced by the same impediments (low ethics) have failed dismally and most have never recovered from the slippery slope of the erosion of values, especially liberation movement organisations. Given our objectives of democratisation of the Namibian society, economic development, provision of social justice and nation building, we seem to have a hazard ahead of us and we must start thinking that the status-quo needs serious evaluation. Does the current climate make room for a holistic approach to contemporary challenges? Is politics an unethical arena? Why is it then that we always seem to be energised and highly contentious with one another during the year of congress? Perhaps if we devote the same attention and energy to all our activities (goals and objectives) we most likely would have made progress with our second leg of the struggle: economic emancipation. My observation is that we are keen to embrace cordial hypocrisy. Our conduct as comrades is incongruous with any substantive ethical values known to mankind. One cannot help to observe that whenever we are faced with economic reconstruction activities we tend to be malicious to one another and the aim of social justice in the distribution of resources is usually - if not always - the cause of all evils. Where does the term eat come from? Let’s try to serve not eat. Maybe we should elevate this notion of ethics to the party, where we also need to say that you cannot be deployed by the party to lead or serve government if you are leading the party, as well. Especially the top-four and Political Bureau members. Those positions must be subject to the same condition that if you are serving there you cannot be serving in government. The top four leaders in government can be non-voting members of the CC and Political bureau. Ex-officio at best. The financial resources should be raised by requesting 10% of net annual salary or allowances of all deployed cadres serving on behalf of the party. This in turn can be the resource pool of allowances to these restricted cadres that will serve the party and impart knowledge and wisdom. We need two centres of powers to restore our values and we need it fast. Now is the time to accelerate this long overdue strategy that will not only safeguard our value systems, but will create a firm foundation for our organisation. How best do we maximise the value of the electorate, given the continuous trust and support we enjoy? Create two centres of power and leverage the wisdom of veteran leaders. The visible downward spiral will catch up with us if we do not do something about it now. Clearly, the current trend is a ticking time bomb. We should start asking the questions how best we will serve our members and sympathisers if we had two centres of power. This collaboration strategy will be key to the restoration of our mighty party into the disciplined giant it once was and still can be. Holding two power cards in government and in the party has become a risk; if ever we needed to endorse anything let that be our values, discipline and integrity. Let us appreciate that our current obstacles are man-made and highly reversible amd let’s thank our lucky stars, congress is around the corner and we can reverse this error. The call for sustainability and two centres of powers stems from recent poor leadership skills displayed by obviously gifted and talented leaders that allowed matters that needed guidance, agility of thought and nourishment of younger cadres to get out of hand. Lack of upkeep of ethics. * Juuso Kambueshe is the constituency councillor and former mayor of Swakopmund. 2017-09-22Staff Report 2
