SWAPO congress 2017_A game of thrones.

I know who is going to win the next presidential election of the republic of Namibia, the president of the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO party), I just don’t know which who it is going to be. I am so certain that I will bet my house on it and I don’t even have one.

The SWAPO party is a former liberation movement and has ruled Namibia for 27 years, because of the allegiance that most citizens show to former liberation movements, SWAPO is unlikely to lose an election for at least 50 years, if ever. In less than two weeks SWAPO will have its congress to decide who will be the party’s president and also who will occupy the other top positions. Therefore, the health of the republic of Namibia is intricately intertwined with the health of the SWAPO party, in the absence of a competent opposition party, the Namibian electorate has no choice but to vote SWAPO – which in retrospect isn’t much of a choice. 

After the 2014 National Elections which saw President Hage Geingob succeed Former president Hifikepunye Pohamba, the latter decided to retire and gave up the presidency of SWAPO. This obviously created a temporary vacuum that Geingob (then vice president) filled as acting SWAPO party president, however as per constitution of the party, the president must be elected at the party congress. Which has now led us to the game of thrones as the incumbent battles for party presidency against current Minister of Youth Jerry Ekandjo (Who lost a similar battle to Geingob in 2014) and former Prime Minister Nahas Angula. I will not delve into the subplot of the mini battles for the other top positions (Vice president, Secretary General, Deputy Secretary general), I will focus on the one that matters – the battle for the presidency of SWAPO party. 

It has bubbled slowly and turned into an all-out political war, with the associated mudslinging and character assassination. Geingob heads Team HARAMBEE, while Angula and Ekandjo head Team SWAPO (when political factions have names, you know that things are serious). 

Team SWAPO have decided to run their campaign based on returning the party to its core socialist ideology, hence their slogan “revitalize, re-energize, and revive.” That’s great, accept for the fact that while the events that require a revival of SWAPO were happening, Ekandjo and Angula were right there at the head of the table and did nothing. All of a sudden, they have the solution? From where? As much as ideology is important, it’s also useless because just like African names it can be easily bastardized. Anyone can form their own interpretation of an ideology, even the Nazi’s had an ideology. Team SWAPO have not adequately addressed the issue of their culpability in the prevalent culture of corruption, nepotism, and self-enrichment that has become so cancerous in government. They want to clean up a mess that they allowed to start and continued ignoring, and all of a sudden they can solve it? 

Geingob is not without sin, but perhaps his sins are younger than Ekandjo and Angula’s. The other thing that stands Geingob in good stead is that he is the captain who is currently steering the Namibian ship through the murkiest waters it has ever waded, a job that neither Ekandjo and Angula could do when they had the chance to in their respective Ministerial roles. It appears that Team SWAPO clearly has no qualms with policies or implementation, but with how Geingob is running his show, they don’t have a problem with what he is doing (because they haven’t addressed the pertinent issues of youth unemployment, lack of housing, and national economic hardship), they have a problem with how he is doing it (they don’t want to dance to his beat). 
 

Dudley Viall's depiction of Team SWAPO - the messiahs.

The choice of candidates isn’t appetizing enough, there is no fresh blood running for the presidency, it’s just recycled has-beens vying for their chance to ‘eat’. There seems to be no culture of grooming young people for important positions in SWAPO, there clearly is a glass ceiling and the ceiling is capped by age and exile credentials. Basically if you’re under 50 and were not in exile during the liberation struggle, you have no business contesting a top 4 position in the SWAPO party. Die hard SWAPO members should really feel like Arsenal FC supporters right now. You all know Arsenal FC right? That English soccer club based in London, they are always linked with the best players before the start of the season, then end up not signing anyone, the coach then paints over the cracks by playing old players out of position, which works until the players are put under pressure and revert to what they know best – being mediocre. I feel that that analogy sums up Team SWAPO in a nutshell, a coalition of angry has-beens who have a problem with the way things are run, forgetting that they had their chance to fix things but turned a blind eye. What will these people conceivably do that they haven’t already tried and failed abysmally? The time is nigh for several members of Team SWAPO to take the honorable exit into farming, it’s time to move on. 

So in the end, the choice of candidates vying for SWAPO presidency is not really much of a choice, if SWAPO is to avoid the plague that has befallen most southern African liberation movements (ANC, Zanu-pf, MPLA), then the delegates who will vote at the congress in a few weeks should make the right choice, the obvious choice.