On December 3, the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) introduced that Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of the ruling South West Africa Folks’s Organisation (SWAPO) social gathering, has emerged victorious within the disputed presidential election carried out from November 27 to 30.
It mentioned Nandi-Ndaitwah received 57 % of the votes, comfortably defeating her important rival, Panduleni Itula from the Impartial Patriots for Change (IPC) social gathering, who acquired round 26 %. As such, Nandi-Ndaitwah, a former freedom fighter and present vp, is now on the verge of constructing historical past as Namibia’s first feminine chief.
Within the meantime, nonetheless, her social gathering SWAPO disenchanted within the parliamentary elections, barely holding on to its majority by successful 51 of the accessible 96 seats. By comparability, the social gathering had secured 63 seats and a cushty majority within the 2019 election.
Regardless of holding on to the presidency, SWAPO, the previous liberation motion which has dominated Namibia because it achieved independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990, is clearly shedding its electoral enchantment. The social gathering achieved its best-ever outcome within the 2014 election, securing 80 % of the vote and a supermajority with 77 seats, however has been on a downward trajectory ever since.
There are numerous the reason why Namibians seem like slowly transferring away from the motion that secured their liberation.
Thirty-four years after independence, SWAPO is struggling to sort out a multidimensional poverty price of 43 %, tackle excessive unemployment ranges, and supply important companies reminiscent of water and sanitation to long-marginalised communities. Whereas the World Financial institution classifies Namibia as an higher middle-income nation, it concurrently identifies it because the second most unequal nation on the planet, as per the Gini index.
Via the years, Namibia has established a twin economic system that has negatively impacted the socioeconomic aspirations of the poor and unemployed: an financial construction that contains a extremely developed trendy sector, alongside a casual sector that principally emphasises subsistence.
This, coupled with an obvious rise of corruption on the governmental degree – which turned evident within the $650m Fishrot scandal implicating senior figures inside SWAPO – has turned many Namibians, and particularly poor, younger folks most affected by excessive unemployment and lack of upward mobility, in opposition to the ruling social gathering.
SWAPO, as soon as seen by many in Namibia as electorally undefeatable and synonymous with the Namibian state, is now in speedy, presumably irreversible decline.
And within the Southern African area, Namibia’s liberation motion turned political social gathering shouldn’t be alone on this predicament.
In actual fact, one liberation motion within the area has already been ousted from energy.
In October 30 elections, the residents of Botswana consigned the Botswana Democratic Occasion (BDP) – the previous liberation motion that had dominated the nation because it achieved independence in September 1966 – to the opposition benches. After 58 uninterrupted years in energy, the social gathering managed to win solely 4 seats on this 12 months’s election.
The BDP’s defeat got here on the again of years of poor financial development and a 26.7 % unemployment price that turned the inhabitants in opposition to the federal government. The rising allegations of corruption directed on the BDP’s Mokgweetsi Masisi, who served as Botswana’s fifth president between 2018-24, didn’t assist the social gathering’s electoral possibilities, both.
In South Africa, in the meantime, the African Nationwide Congress (ANC) misplaced its parliamentary majority for the primary time for the reason that finish of white minority rule in April 1994. On this 12 months’s Could basic election, the liberation motion turned governing social gathering’s vote share fell to just a little over 40 %, a pointy decline from the 57 % they secured in 2019. Twenty years in the past, in 2004, the social gathering had the assist of a whopping 69.9 % of South African voters.
Simply as for the BDP in Botswana, the ANC’s gradual fall from favour is tied to its incapacity to sort out unemployment, shortcomings in service supply, and expenses of corruption directed at its high-ranking members. All through the 2010s, corruption involving senior ANC leaders dented the social gathering’s longstanding credibility and crippled state-owned enterprises, inflicting losses of roughly $100bn – equal to a 3rd of the nation’s gross home product (GDP).
Over time, thousands and thousands of voters have distanced themselves from the ANC, because the social gathering repeatedly failed to make sure moral governance and to navigate the advanced and evolving socioeconomic challenges of latest South African society.
In different international locations throughout the area, related failures are plaguing long-governing former liberation actions, and making them flip to oppressive and undemocratic strategies to keep up their grip on energy.
Take the case of Mozambique.
On October 24, Mozambique’s election fee declared Daniel Chapo and his ruling social gathering, the Entrance for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), victors of the October 9 basic elections. Nonetheless, the electoral course of was essentially flawed, marked by political killings, widespread irregularities and punitive restrictions on the rights to free expression and meeting.
Frelimo has been in energy in Mozambique for the reason that nation gained independence from Portugal in June 1975, following a 10-year struggle for freedom. Nevertheless, it has failed to fulfill the expectations and preserve the assist of the folks of Mozambique after governing the impartial nation.
As we speak, solely 40 % of the inhabitants has entry to grid electrical energy. Between 2014/15 and 2019/20, the nationwide poverty price escalated from 48.4 % to 62.8 %, with no less than 95 % of rural households falling into multidimensional poverty. To compound issues, greater than 80 % of the labour pressure works within the casual sector, leaving thousands and thousands of on a regular basis Mozambicans with out entry to social safety.
Corruption can also be widespread amongst prime members of Frelimo. In 2022, 11 senior authorities officers, together with Armando Ndambi Guebuza, the son of former president Armando Guebuza, had been discovered responsible of offences linked to a $2bn “hidden debt” scandal that brought on the lack of tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in government-guaranteed loans and sparked an financial meltdown within the nation.
Because of this, Frelimo seems to haven’t any expectation of successful the majorities it has grown accustomed to through the years in free and truthful elections. Thus it constantly makes an attempt to cowl up its failings in governance by means of political violence and assaults on the electoral course of.
In Tanzania, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) ruling social gathering secured a staggering 98 % of the seats within the November 27 native polls. Nonetheless, this electoral course of was additionally characterised by arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, restrictions on freedom of expression, and extrajudicial killings, together with the assassination of Ali Mohamed Kibao, a member of the opposition Chadema social gathering.
In Zimbabwe, too, the ruling ZANU-PF, one other former-liberation motion, has established a extremely securitised state to keep up its fragile grip on energy. Because the nation turned impartial in April 1980, ZANU-PF has always repressed opposition voices and executed a succession of fraudulent elections, such because the shambolic harmonised elections of August 2023, primarily to evade accountability for its overwhelming incompetence.
In the meantime, in Angola, the ruling Folks’s Motion for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) went to nice lengths to silence dissent and guarantee its success within the August 2022 elections. Whereas by means of these efforts the MPLA managed to increase its decades-long governance, it did so with the slimmest margin of victory ever, implying {that a} seismic political change could be looming.
The instances have definitely shifted, and it’s clear that the previous freedom fighters in Southern Africa are falling in need of the noble beliefs of liberty envisioned within the colonial days.
A state of freedom that restricts the complete expression of core civic rights and disregards the proper to life displays a shallow achievement.
Liberation that doesn’t present equitable and enough entry to primary companies, employment alternatives and financial empowerment is as degrading because the previous actuality of colonial subjugation.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeeras’ editorial stance.
