Mr. Phil ya Nangoloh
SOME 14 days ago, I analyzed the official results of the ruling Swapo Party’s Electoral College with the view to inter alia see its representation of the national character of the Namibian people.
Today, I am doing the same for Namibia’s largest extra-parliamentary opposition party, the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP).
Speaking at a press conference RDP President Hidipo Hamutenya (HH) released his party’s official list of candidates following its Electoral College held over the weekend. HH inter alia said:
“We are satisfied with the outcome of the deliberations of the Electoral College. In terms of ethnic, gender, generations and capabilities, the composition of candidates that the RDP has assembled is quite diverse and rep-resentative of our nation.”
In my analysis, I will also make a comprehensive comparison between the RDP list (List 1) and that of its main rival, the ruling Swapo Party (List 2). The corresponding figure for the Swapo Party is identified by the number in square brackets.
1.I will unpack the abovementioned statement by HH and make the following four comments: (1) That with 5 [2] women or 25 [10] per cent of the totalnumber of candidates in the top twenty, the RDP list, like that of all other political parties, including the ruling Swapo Party, is male dominated; (2) that with 8 [2] candidates Oshiwambo-speakers make up 40 [60] percent of the top twenty, the 4 [0] German-speaking candidates among the top 20 means that ethnicGermans constitute 20 [0] per cent of the total followed by 3 [2] ethnic Otjiherero and 2 [0] ethnic Afrikaners making up 15 [10] per cent and 10 [0] per cent, respectively, of the top twenty, while generation wise 3 [0] candidates or 15 [0] per cent of the top twenty are the youth; (3) that one candidate each, ethnic Damaras [3], Namas [0] and Caprivians [1] means that these groups altogether make up 15 [20] per cent of the total. (4) In terms of capability, all 20 candidates topping the RDP list appear to be persons of high caliber like those on the Swapo Party list.
2.There is apparently not a singleethnic San person anywhere on the RDP list, while the Swapo Party has one (no. 58) on its list. This state of affairs, to a certain extent, appears to derogate from HH’s suggestions that RDP has assembled a list of candidates which is “quite a diverse and representative” of Namibia’s national character. Therefore, RDP deserves my severest reprimand for failing to find a suitable San candidate!
3. From the composition of the RDP list of altogether 71 [72] candidates for the National Assembly, it is clear that an effort has been made to ensure that the list is generally representative of the country’s ethno-racial, gender and generational composition. While ethnic Ovambos numbering altogether 36 [34] candidates or 50 [47] in total, there is, on the RDP list, a large concentration of non- Ovambos as one moves towards the top of the list. The opposite is true on the Swapo Party list.
4. Female candidates, numbering 5 [4] (nos. 4, 10, 11, 15 and 19) in total, make up 20 [16] per cent of all the 25 candidates topping the RDP list. However, the number of female (23 [23]) candidates or 32 [32] per cent of the total of 71 [72] candidates is virtually the same for both rival parties. Nonetheless, RDP has a slight edge in terms of the number of women (15 [13]) among the top 50 [50] candidates. In other words, the majority of the women on the Swapo Party list are below the 50th position.
5. The entire national youth leadership of RDP (nos. 12, 13 and 27) is among the top 50 candidates on the RDP list. This is in addition to the fact that 64 of the 71 National Assembly candidates on the RDP list are newcomers and the majority of them are members of the younger generation. Only 7 (no. 66, 65, 52, 34, 6, 4 and 3) RDP candidates could be regarded as members of the Old Guard. Three (nos. 3, 34 and 52) members of the Old Guard could be classified as members of the Tanganyika group.
6. The so-called Western Ovambos (i.e. members of minority Ngandjera, Kwaluudhi (and Kolonkadhi) and Mbalantu tribes of the Omusati region, i.e. if the Windhoek Observer editorial of 5 September 2009 was used as a pointer) have also lost out to members of the majority Eastern Ovambo tribes (the “Kwanyama clique” being in the overwhelming majority). Numbering 32 [9] or 88 [12] per cent, members of the Eastern Ovambo tribes dominate the RDP’s Ovambo list.
7. Numbering 4 [5] of all the 36 [34] Ovambos on the RDP list, the central Kwambi tribesmen and women (nos. 61, 58, 49 and 37) of central Owambo make up 11 [14] per cent, outnumbering the 3 [10] Ndonga tribesmen and women of the Oshikoto region, who make up 8 [29] per cent of the entire Ovambo contingent on the RDP list. On the Swapo Party list, members of the Western Ovambo tribes make up 26 per cent of the total Ovambo contingent, but they occupy top positions on the Swapo Party list.
8. Three candidates (i.e. nos. 7, 15 and 26) are veterans of the labour union movement, while in fact two candidates (nos. 39 and 67) are former victims of Swapo’s Lubango dungeons. This might be seen as a positive indicia of RDP’s disposition towards the controversial issue of “missing persons” from the preindependence era.
9. All in all, my analysis shows the RDP list to be generally more representative than that of its Swapo Party rival in terms of the ethno racial, gender and generational character of the Namibian population. This state of affairs might make RDP more attractive and promising for especially the socalled born frees, the labour unionists and the teaching profession and persons with disabilities as well as the Swapo ex-detainees, than RDP’s principal rival.
