On December 3, the Electoral Fee of Namibia (ECN) introduced that Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of the ruling South West Africa Individuals’s Organisation (SWAPO) occasion, has emerged victorious within the disputed presidential election performed from November 27 to 30.
It mentioned Nandi-Ndaitwah gained 57 p.c of the votes, comfortably defeating her foremost rival, Panduleni Itula from the Impartial Patriots for Change (IPC) occasion, who acquired round 26 p.c. As such, Nandi-Ndaitwah, a former freedom fighter and present vice chairman, is now on the verge of creating historical past as Namibia’s first feminine chief.
Within the meantime, nonetheless, her occasion SWAPO disillusioned within the parliamentary elections, barely holding on to its majority by profitable 51 of the obtainable 96 seats. By comparability, the occasion had secured 63 seats and a snug 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 attraction. The occasion achieved its best-ever end result within the 2014 election, securing 80 p.c of the vote and a supermajority with 77 seats, however has been on a downward trajectory ever since.
There are lots of explanation why Namibians look like slowly transferring away from the motion that secured their liberation.
Thirty-four years after independence, SWAPO is struggling to deal with a multidimensional poverty fee of 43 p.c, deal with excessive unemployment ranges, and supply important providers corresponding to 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 earth, as per the Gini index.
By way of 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 includes a extremely developed trendy sector, alongside a casual sector that largely emphasises subsistence.
This, coupled with an obvious rise of corruption on the governmental stage – which grew to become 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, towards the ruling occasion.
SWAPO, as soon as seen by many in Namibia as electorally undefeatable and synonymous with the Namibian state, is now in speedy, probably irreversible decline.
And within the Southern African area, Namibia’s liberation motion turned political occasion shouldn’t be alone on this predicament.
In reality, one liberation motion within the area has already been ousted from energy.
In October 30 elections, the residents of Botswana consigned the Botswana Democratic Social gathering (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 occasion 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 progress and a 26.7 p.c unemployment fee that turned the inhabitants towards 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 occasion’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 common election, the liberation motion turned governing occasion’s vote share fell to somewhat over 40 p.c, a pointy decline from the 57 p.c they secured in 2019. Twenty years in the past, in 2004, the occasion had the help of a whopping 69.9 p.c of South African voters.
Simply as for the BDP in Botswana, the ANC’s gradual fall from favour is tied to its incapacity to deal with 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 occasion’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).
Through the years, hundreds of thousands of voters have distanced themselves from the ANC, because the occasion 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 take care of their grip on energy.
Take the case of Mozambique.
On October 24, Mozambique’s election fee declared Daniel Chapo and his ruling occasion, the Entrance for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), victors of the October 9 common elections. Nonetheless, the electoral course of was basically 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 help of the folks of Mozambique after governing the unbiased nation.
Right now, solely 40 p.c of the inhabitants has entry to grid electrical energy. Between 2014/15 and 2019/20, the nationwide poverty fee escalated from 48.4 p.c to 62.8 p.c, with no less than 95 p.c of rural households falling into multidimensional poverty. To compound issues, greater than 80 p.c of the labour drive works within the casual sector, leaving hundreds of thousands of on a regular basis Mozambicans with out entry to social safety.
Corruption can be widespread amongst high 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 prompted the lack of a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in government-guaranteed loans and sparked an financial meltdown within the nation.
Because of this, Frelimo seems to don’t have any expectation of profitable the majorities it has grown accustomed to through the years in free and honest elections. Thus it constantly makes an attempt to cowl up its failings in governance via political violence and assaults on the electoral course of.
In Tanzania, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) ruling occasion secured a staggering 98 p.c 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 occasion.
In Zimbabwe, too, the ruling ZANU-PF, one other former-liberation motion, has established a extremely securitised state to take care of its fragile grip on energy. Because the nation grew to become unbiased in April 1980, ZANU-PF has consistently 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 Individuals’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 via 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 is perhaps looming.
The occasions have definitely shifted, and it’s clear that the previous freedom fighters in Southern Africa are falling wanting the noble beliefs of liberty envisioned within the colonial days.
A state of freedom that restricts the total expression of core civic rights and disregards the correct to life displays a shallow achievement.
Liberation that doesn’t present equitable and ample entry to fundamental providers, employment alternatives and financial empowerment is as degrading because the previous actuality of colonial subjugation.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeeras’ editorial stance.
