Africa-Press – Namibia. Late campaigns, lack of resources, misjudgement of their political capacity and choosing to pursue and campaign in the wrong areas were some of the contributing factors that led to the dismal performance of both the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) and Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), political analyst have observed.
Political analyst Natjirikasora Tjirera stated that it was always clear from the onset that Swapo was determined to regain all lost constituencies and municipalities and it invested heavily both in human capital and campaigns to ensure that they are present in all 121 constituencies.
“It was an open secret all along that the ruling party was determined to take over those constituencies they lost to both the LPM and the IPC. The ruling party invested heavily in their quest to get those constituencies back. Our political history teaches us that there is a time that momentum pushes a new party to great heights before eventually reality sinks in and it is up to the party to do politics for it to be relevant to the electorate,” said Tjirera.
While all credit goes to Swapo for putting in the work and securing landslide victory in previously lost constituencies, all hope is not lost for LPM, IPC and other opposition parties.
“In 2020 both the LPM and the IPC were relatively new parties on the Namibian political space, and their momentum carried them through. Their momentum was beaded on hope by those who supported them. During that time, they are difficult to judge and are normally given the benefit of the doubt. When the momentum and euphoria fades away, it comes down to the political shrewdness of the leaders of those parties to make decisions that will be beneficial for their parties,” he said.
“Namibia is a big country and running a campaign in the whole country can be very costly especially when you do not have access to State resources like Swapo does. The failure of the leaders of the IPC and the LPM to focus mainly on areas where they have hope of winning instead of campaigning everywhere was a huge political miscalculation,” he added.
Tjirera said it was always going to be difficult for opposition parties to compete with Swapo’s political currency and human capital in all constituencies.
“You can not go toe to toe with a party using State machinery. They ought to have identified regions in which they are strong and concentrated on them while maintaining a low-key presence in the other areas. It would even have been better had they worked together with other parties to ensure that the opposition vote is strong,” he said.
On Swartbooi’s recent perceived ‘tribal and decisive remarks on //Kharas and Hardap regions being separate regions from the rest of the country’, Tjirera said those remarks did not play a major role in the overall performance of the party.
“I honestly do not believe that those remarks negatively affected the LPM. As unfortunate as they are, it resonates with a number of voters. The results in the south is because of Swapo’s determination to get the south back and the fact that they are armed with the resources. The infightings within the LPM which led to Harald Kambrude running as an independent as well as the fallout with Henny Seibeb took its toll over time. I still believe they enjoy significant support, but they did not maximize on it because they chose to go national,” he said.
“The allegations of Panduleni Itula’s dictatorial tendencies are as frequent as those that praise him for being visionary and a good leader. Because of the number of votes they got nationally they chose to compete everywhere even where they have no support at all. They are a victim of their own ambitions. All in all, it is not rocket science that the parties that focused on their strongholds did better than LPM and IPC. I also believe that they have the political capital to bounce back from this setback provided that they do an honest political introspection and see where they went wrong and how they can improve,” said Tjirera.
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