Africa-Press – Namibia. NAMIBIA’S BIGGEST corruption story, a major scandal involving the ruling party Swapo, has dominated daily news for more than two years. Swapo is a particularly important, no, indispensable, stakeholder (for now) in the essential process of nation building in Namibia specifically and Afrika generally. At this point, having considered the damage the party has inflicted on itself and the nation, there is a place for genuine patriotism that could serve as a foundation to provide Swapo with an offramp for its current maladies.
Swapo is still needed and, as a mother political party in the nation’s body politic, it is in the interests of the party and the country if Swapo can do something to regain its credibility to govern. State institutions have been compromised. State-owned enterprises have been jinxed.
Over the last seven years, Namibia’s political leadership has become more retrogressive. Still, the country needs Swapo, just as the country needs other political parties and formations that contribute to the nation’s sustainable development. Swapo is essential for peace and stability. It is thus time for Namibians who care about the future to help one another instead of wishing one another away. The organisational principle is that we can all make a contribution, once given opportunity and space, which we have not done thus far.
The socio-political and economic harm caused by the shenanigans of the National Fishing Corporation of Namibia (Fishcor) under the influence of Swapo leaders will remain a blemish on the pages of Namibia’s history. The media, as the fourth, tried its best to throw light on the stench of corruption and to enable the government to be proactive, but the government chose to be dismissive of the reports. Critical non-governmental organisations failed to play their activist roles sufficiently. It took brave investigative journalism by international whistleblowers to lift the lid on Fishcor. It was international journalism that exposed those whose hands were deep in the till looting from national resources for personal and political gain.
The once respected liberation movement is responsible for what has gone very wrong within it. Yes, it is too early to pass final judgement, but too late not to have an informed opinion. AN ACCOUNTING
The 2017 electoral congress, which produced the current leadership, was less than fair. Unfortunately, Swapo has strayed too far from the values of democratic elections that has led the executive branch into a crisis of legitimacy. The country faces a constitutional conundrum. If proven, the country has, technically, an illegitimate leadership. Accusations and charges needing an accounting include:
• In 2017, Swapo’s constitution and rules and regulations governing elections of internal candidates were ignored or blatantly discarded.
• The congressional election was predetermined through alleged vote buying and ‘decampaigning’.
• Specific people restructured procedures to siphon money from national resources that funded particular candidates, and disadvantaged others who were exercising their rights as mandated by Swapo’s own constitution.
• The party’s secretary general, charged with protecting all candidates, chose sides.
• Two law firms have submitted legal affidavits under oath to the Anti-Corruption Commission admitting that they channeled funds from Fishcor to Swapo for campaign purposes.
• More than two actors in the business of transferring money from Fishcor to Swapo testified under oath in court about their dubious funding activities.
• The officer who presided over the elections and announced the results was one candidate’s personal lawyer and has been linked to the Fishrot scandal.
• After the congress, the politics of recrimination followed. Jobs were taken away from Swapo leaders who lost out.
• Two Cabinet ministers plus four senior executives associated with Fishcor have been in prison for three Christmases despite a lack of convictions. The rule of law precept is that one is presumed innocent till proven guilty.
Swapo is a dangerously divided house. The party’s intraparty democracy was turned upside down. Swapo, the erstwhile vanguard of peace, unity, liberty, and justice is now an internal theatre of warfare.
Namibians have lost confidence in political leaders because of what’s happened, and this cannot augur well for a young nation grappling with so many national challenges to maintain unity and stability. Chief among them is a chronic lack of credible leaders, and identity politics in the form of tribalism and ethnicity.
According to the Afrobarometer report of November 2021, more than two-thirds (74%) of Namibians surveyed believe the government has lost the fight against corruption. Violations of democratic expectations have ushered into government the current leadership of Swapo. As a result, all subsequent decisions this leadership made should be considered null and void, ex tunc. They are outcomes of changed rules of the game.
A few individuals connected to the president as his water carriers anointed themselves as gatekeepers to the new heaven of wealth and leadership protection.
So much damage has been done not only to the party that constituted our national identity, but to the nation as a whole. The youth of Namibia, in the pedagogy of monkey-see-monkey-do, is learning that to be powerful and significant, one must destroy others, and be the richest in the neighbourhood.
Democracy continues to pay a hefty price. It’s time for all Namibians to put on their patriotic hats and put their shoulders to the wheel to help. The future of the nation is at stake. It is in the interest of the Namibian nation that Swapo does not decompose further.
SCENARIOS Here are some scenarios for the party to consider if it wishes to redeem itself and be ready for victory in 2024. • Ignore, deny, and continue to be dismissive: This has been the weakness of Swapo and all liberation movements across the continent, until it was too late, and freedom died with infamy.
• Shift the blame downwards, scapegoat and victimise. It does not help to pass the blame to individuals when it is clear that they acted in the interests of the party. Heads need to roll to form a new leadership.
• Falsify evidence, unleash spin doctors to discredit and malign all sources by any means necessary. The risk is that people motivated by money will jump ship when lying no longer pays or when those they defended are found guilty.
• Cause endless delays and obfuscation in the hope that players either die in the meantime or the party just muddles through. This is the choice Robert Mugabe and the National Party of South Africa made. The result was they ended up losing practically everything.
• Declare all information about Fishrot to be a deliberate international and internal hostile (third force) campaign for regime change. In so doing, use state machinery to muzzle voices critical of the state and rule by fear till elections in 2024. The problem is that what goes around comes around.
• Claim ignorance, accept some culpability and employ the language of national reconciliation. Invite everyone to forget the past and move on. After all, Swapo can claim to have forgiven apartheid colonial enemies. The problem is that no measure of self-pity can take away the wrath of people who feel robbed by elected leaders.
• Take the bull by the horns, take the nation into its confidence, and convene an extra-extraordinary congress of Swapo as a matter of urgency with the aim of atoning for the ills, and rebooting the party along the lines of its original values of sacrifice, service and one Namibia, one nation. This is preceded by the resignation of the party’s top four to be replaced at the said congress. At this congress, Swapo is re-invigorated with a new leadership and a clear mandate to take the country forward. The rebooted and re-set Swapo commits itself to meritocratic leadership, what Julius Nyerere called a ‘Leadership Code’, the cardinal principle of which was that party leaders and cabinet members are barred from mixing political leadership with business interests. Swapo abandons the practice of mediocrity and jobs for comrades and commits to honesty and integrity in political leadership going forward by way of an urgent lifestyle audit within its ranks.
• The entire executive resigns, and new elections are called within three months during which the speaker of the National Assembly assumes power till the elections produce a new leadership. This might be the most plausible, but the history of post-independence Afrikan leadership shows that Afrika does not have leaders who put the interests of the nation ahead of their own.
This is no time for business as usual. Change is needed to give the country space to regain its soul. This requires a great deal of courage, sacrifice, sincerity, and foresightedness on the part of the leaders and their followers to dream big and usher in a new country that is better, greater, and more pleasant. Swapo finds itself in the proverbial Solomonic dilemma of having to choose between splitting the baby to stay in power at all costs or save the baby that is Namibia. Swapo is first in line towards that destiny and appointment with history – with a fierce urgency of NOW!
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