Mismatches in campaign messages about corruption and unity

LAZARUS KAIRABEB, LPM CANDIDATE FOR THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY WRITES:

Voters in Namibia have come of age and are no longer happy-go-lucky to be taken advantage of.

No campaign pomposity of President Geingob will reverse his inability to flog corrupt elements in his government to submission. In the eyes of every reasonable person, the rule of law seems blind to corruption and oblivious to inequality.

Or how else should one explain the way corruption that has pervaded the government system during his reign. He was the person with the highest approval rating during the 2014 election because we all believed he was the one with the necessary valor to wipe out corrupt practices from the system.

Little did we know that political corruption, under which some selected Tenderpreneurs were to flourish and the capture of government agencies by these Tenderpreneurs were to become the order of the day. When Minister Schlettwein managed to close down the taps, he forestalled the first destruction. But the environment was already perfected for bribery, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, extortion, money laundering, rent seeking and the repression of political challengers.

All of these elements are simmering in government dealings and renders the arm’s-length principle dysfunctional. Consequences thereof are manifestly visible in the performance of the economy since the end of 2016.

Look at the way the Swapo-led government has reprocessed appointments of members who had resigned from government positions as per the constitutional and electoral law requirements. The act is apparently justified because the members are expected back in their original positions come March 2020. Such deeds demonstrates the course of the road to destruction which is evident in the consolidation of power first, and then corruption, and then the obvious consequences. We cannot allow such machination to go on unchallenged.

We know there is no silver bullet for fighting corruption but countries like our immediate neighbor – South Africa – thanks to the injection of spirited politicking by young and radical politicians such as the Malemas’ and the Mmusi Maimane’s was put on course and have started to make significant progress in curbing what came to be known as the “Grand Corruption” in South Africa. There we can see a clear demonstration of commitment by the president to eradicate corrupt elements by committing resources, infrastructure, and political will, which is nowhere to be seen in the case of Namibia.

I fail to understand how Geingob wants to present himself and the Swapo party as being able to restore the integrity of the system.

When listening to Geingob’s campaign message of unity, one wonders what the change would be that can still make the Swapo Party a unifying factor after the epic failure to treat its followers equal.

The Swapo Party has abrogated, like in the case of many revolutionary movements, its foundational principles of reconfiguring public institutions to build systems that are responsive and accountable to citizens, and that effectively support economic investment and growth; by substituting it with informal systems of clienteles, crony economies that are key contributors to stifling popular participation, subverting the rule of law, fostering corruption, distorting the delivery of public services, discouraging investment and undermining economic progress. Because these activities are deeply entrenched, rarely authorized or openly acknowledged, and may take different forms depending on their context, clientelistic networks are both difficult to detect and to remove. And this monster now gradually diminished whatever is left in the Swapo doctrine. No wonder Geingob sound so disconnected and withdrawn from people, not knowing what to ask them publicly.

Geingob will need many more buses to transport people from different centers to his meeting points unlike in the olden days when people were traveling by own means from different directions. People are simply depleted financially, jobless and miserable. They climb the buses to go and do their own things in towns.

On the other hand, a young fellow politician going by the name of Bernadus Swartbooi of the LPM is drawing crowds from locals that are filling meeting spaces out of interest to hear what the new kid have to offer. His offerings are buoyant, though consistent, and sustainable in every sense of the delivery. His support base is full of exuberant, young dynamic and sustainable political proponents.

A vote for LPM is the beginning of the change process for Namibian politics, pretty much the same way the South African political landscape is changing. A vote for any other opposition is a mere continuation of moderate politicking that can no longer be tolerated in Namibia because it does not help the country to break from the persistent and sustained reliance on falsehoods as the basis of unity claims even in the face of massive and well-observed evidence to the contrary. Change in Namibian politics is inevitable and it begins now.