Nambia's Elections 2009: Democracy without Democrats? - Publications

Election posters 2009. Photo by Election Watch

By Henning Melber

Download complete article with footnotes (pdf, 14 pages, 100 KB). 

The smooth transition to Independence during 1989/1990, which followed a long and protracted anti-colonial liberation struggle, turned Namibia into an internationally applauded showpiece of African democracy. Based on a constitutionally enshrined multi-party democracy, the country set standards for controlled change within a normative framework in respect of what is generally labeled by those who hold the power of definition as “good governance”. The South West Africa People's Organization (Swapo) of Namibia, the former liberation movement, seized legitimate political power as the result of United Nations supervised general, free and fair elections. In an appraisal of the first party president Sam Nujoma, to whom parliament in the course of his retirement from office as a head of state conferred the official title “Founding Father of the Republic of Namibia”, the Swapo website, which became operational in mid-2009, states: “He successfully united all Namibians into a peaceful, tolerant and democratic society governed by the rule of law.” 

This sounds indeed like an impressive track record. The latest National Assembly and Presidential elections, held 20 years into democracy during 27 and 28 November 2009, seem to be a good reference point and litmus test to verify this ambitious claim. The official results released after a cumbersome procedure by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) on 4 December confirmed the overwhelming majority for Swapo, which operates as a de facto single party government ever since it obtained a 2/3 majority in the 1994 elections. It has since then consolidated its political hegemony into a 3/4 majority of votes during elections in 1999 and 2004. This time, Swapo again maintained its overwhelming dominance with almost the same proportional results. Democracy in Namibia seems to be a rather unilateral affair and underscores the slogan of the struggle days that “Swapo is the nation and the nation is Swapo”.

The state of Namibian democracy

Notwithstanding a rights-based constitutional framework adopted at Independence, national sovereignty not automatically predetermined a vibrant, plural democracy with strong civil society components. Instead, the legacy of a century of settler colonialism had created rather restrictive mental dispositions. A survey among Namibians aged 18 to 32 concluded more than a decade after Independence that “Namibia does not have sufficient young Democrats to make the consolidation of democracy a foregone conclusion”. As if this would not be of enough discomfort, a follow up study added the not so flattering diagnosis that “Namibians are high in partisanship and low in cognitive skills”.  This touches on aspects of what could be termed the authoritarian character, resulting from the oppressive systems of both the settler colonial structures as well as the hierarchy of the anti-colonial movement particularly in exile. Both were by any standards not a fertile breeding ground for a human and civic rights inspired culture and environment, fostering democratic mindsets.  

It is therefore not too surprising that the Afrobarometer Network in a compendium of public opinion findings based on a total of three surveys in Namibia between 1999 and 2006 concluded that among the 18 countries surveyed “Namibians appear to be the most deferential to their elected leaders”.  In terms of the attitudes among citizens the Afrobarometer national survey of 2005 classified Namibia as “a democracy without democrats”. A summary of Afrobarometer indicators from five surveys between 1999 and 2008 among a representative sample of around 1,200 persons concluded: “There is no obvious trend in support for democracy. It has fluctuated roughly around 60 percent across all five surveys.” Furthermore: “Commitment to elections as the best means for selecting leaders declined by nearly 30 percent between 2002 and 2008.”  

It would be misleading, however, to conclude on the basis of such empirical evidence, that Namibians would idle passively or show signs of fatigue with regard to political contestation. As a matter of fact, Namibian politics were the last two years livelier than before, and there are impressive features of a plural political culture in terms of public discourse. There is a wide panorama of print media and journalists operating rather independently from the influence of the dominant party.

With the break away of a fraction of former high-ranking political office bearers from the first (exile) generation of Swapo and the formation of the new Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) in late 2007, hitherto unknown dynamics entered the political stage and turned the election campaign into anything but a honeymoon. Already during 2008 some indicators suggested that the political climate in Namibia had markedly changed to the worse.

A survey undertaken at the end of 2008 by the Afrobarometer project therefore warned: “The unprecedented fixation on the coming election, which seemingly has been underway for years, has already challenged the peace and stability of the country in ways unseen since independence. Emotions are running high, judging by the unprecedented confrontations around recent by-elections and political party rallies.” As sensibly concluded by a local observer: “In the coming two years, if RDP’s promise bears fruit, Namibia’s democracy will be paraded and be shown up to have either matured or regressed to the level of other sorry states in Africa.” Having since then navigated through a large part of the unknown territory, the results of the election and in particular the preceding months of an intensive election campaign provide some indication. But the final verdict over the direction, which Namibia’s political culture will ultimately take, seems still pending.

The election campaign

With the elections in late 1994 Swapo expanded its absolute majority obtained in November 1989 into a 2/3 majority of seats in the National Assembly. In 1999 and 2004 this political hegemony was consolidated into a 3/4 majority of votes with 55 out of the 72 political mandates obtained, notwithstanding the challenges of the Congress of Democrats (CoD). The CoD was formed just ahead of the 1999 elections as first political alternative based on dissenting former Swapo activists. While it emerged as the official opposition by securing in both elections most votes among the parties contesting the Swapo quasi-monopoly of political power, it never managed to make inroads into the Swapo electorate.

In 2008, the CoD imploded over internal differences, power struggles and fights over resources. The two most prominent founding members with a Swapo history (at the time of parting from Swapo holding posts as ambassador and deputy minister respectively) separated. CoD president Ben Ulenga and Ignatius Shixwameni as president of the newly established African People’s Party (APP) both managed to survive politically by securing enough votes to become their parties’ only elected MPs for the legislative period 2010-2015.

The RDP emerged as the only relevant substitute for the CoD. It was founded by two former members of Cabinet, Jesaya Nyamu and Hidipo Hamutenya, who were both political heavyweights from the first struggle generation in exile, before losing a Swapo internal power struggle over the succession of Sam Nujoma as head of state. Given the new party’s affinity also to parts of Swapo’s regional stronghold in the Northern region of Namibia, the RDP was considered to be a serious challenge to Swapo’s dominance. This widely held perception contributed to the aggressive Swapo response. RDP was denounced to be composed of traitors, who were labelled as agents of imperialism and remote controlled pawns acting in the interest of regime change. The responses from both higher party levels as well as by local grass root activists were heavy handed and contributed to a climate of repression hitherto unknown. A witch-hunt for so-called hibernators, suspected to undermine as moles for the RDP the Swapo structures from the inside, was initiated and marred the public discourse for the last two years.

On various occasions the right to campaign freely was denied to RDP activists, who were accused of provoking Swapo supporters in their local strongholds. Properly registered political rallies were prevented to take place in public space with the argument that they were arranged in Swapo territory. This led to several clashes between members of both parties and acts of physical violence. Police forces had to intervene on several occasions and dispersed the crowd by using teargas. For the first time since Independence, an election campaign in Namibia turned visibly ugly. Leading political office bearers in the two main rival parties were ignoring an orderly conduct and used aggressive language bordering to hate speech. The tensions were indicative of the degree of contestation and confrontation.  The degree of intolerance did not abide well for the state of Namibian democracy.         

The election process

The Namibian electorate for the first time cast its votes on two consecutive days (27 and 28 November). The reform of the electoral law also provided for a vote count at the polling stations in the presence of observers. However, the results were then transmitted to the headquarters of the ECN in Windhoek for final verification before they were announced. This resulted in a considerable delay, so that the official end result was made known after days of speculation only on 4 December. Given the relatively small number of votes counted (just exceeding 800,000), this added to the irritation among those already afraid of manipulation.

In spite of such concerns, the Minister for Diplomatic Affairs in the Office of the President of Mozambique was the first to present as head of the 120-member SADC Electoral Observer Mission (SEOM) a complete and unreserved whitewash of the elections as “transparent, credible, peaceful, free and fair”. Observer missions from the Parliamentary Forum of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) were also declaring the elections as free and fair as early as 1 December. A spokesperson of the 40-member SADC observer team recommended to return to one polling day in compliance with the other SADC countries and to allocate equal airtime to all parties during the election campaign in the state owned broadcasting company NBC. He noted “vigorous coverage of the electoral process in a balanced manner” by the local (predominantly private owned) print media but criticised the state broadcaster NBC for its bias in favour of Swapo.

In the presentation of the preliminary report of the 24-member observer mission from the AU, retired Tanzanian Justice Lewis Makame combined its approval of the elections with a reference to “minor problems”, which included a “painstakingly slow” counting process. It found fears of vote rigging expressed among the opposition parties not supported by evidence but felt at the same time “not in the position to say that there was no rigging”.

The 17-member observer mission of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) presented a day later a more nuanced assessment with some noteworthy critical undertones. It questioned the policy of the state owned radio and television company NBC, which it accused of un-due support to Swapo, and recommended that “the State media in Namibia be insulated from direct Government control by the establishment of an independent media institution with the responsibility of appointment and dismissal of heads of State media”. Mission leader Ambrose Dery from Ghana also raised concern over the printing of 1.6 million ballot papers (for an registered electorate below one million) as a potential recipe for vote rigging.  Although the mission had concluded that the elections took place within the constitutional and legislative framework, it felt that Namibia could do much better.

For the first time in Namibian elections local civil society institutions had formed own election observation teams. The Namibian Institute for Democracy (NID) in a statement declared that it had noted several minor flaws but not observed any grave irregularities and therefore trusted that the results were by and large credible. It announced a more detailed report for January, and noted “problematic issues relating to the often inept performance of some ECN officials, problems with the voters roll and the system of counting and verification of ballots, exacerbated by the large number of tendered ballots”, which “led to the announcement of the final election results only a week after polls closed.  This casts a shadow over what otherwise could have been exemplary elections and may now lead to the non-acceptance of results by the biggest opposition political parties, which is regrettable. Logistical and organisational deficiencies of the ECN in organising the elections are a matter of concern (…)The relatively low voter turnout in some constituencies is a matter of concern.” 

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which had created an election watch website, also refrained from any fundamental criticism and seemed largely satisfied that the results reflected the will of the voters.

Most opposition parties were less reconciliatory. Eight of them announced in a joint statement on 4 December that they will bring a list of irregularities to the Namibian justice system to seek a clarification in court if and to what extent the election results were acceptable.  Already in 2004/5 this had led to a legal battle ending in a re-count of the votes with an ultimate confirmation of the results.  Queries by those initiating legal intervention include not only the delay in the announcement of the official results through a verification process of which the parties were not informed in advance, but also the disputed voters role with differing figures at different times, reports of multiple registrations, incidences where the supposedly undeletable ink marking fingers of those who had voted could be removed, as well as the fact that the ballot papers for both the National Assembly and the Presidential elections were marked by pencil. In one case two officials were arrested for the unauthorized opening of a ballot box at the polling station during the two days of voting.

Further suspicion created the exceptionally high number of votes cast in several districts (in contrast to markedly less votes in other districts with less support for the governing party). According to Namibian election laws tendered votes can be cast in other polling stations than the one they are registered with. As a result, three polling stations in the Northern stronghold of Swapo recorded 129%, 133% and 135% of registered votes respectively. Since these were located in rural districts with a low degree of mobility in the sense of influx from other regions, this is more difficult to explain than the exceptionally high rate of votes in some of the urban centers such as Swakopmund (112%), Walvis Bay (110%), and two districts in Windhoek (104% and 101%). Some consider this as evidence for ballot stuffing. Such disturbing results give at least food for thought if possibly the over-eager appeals of some leading Swapo politicians during the election campaign to secure 150% of the votes or at least all parliamentary seats were taken too serious by some of the loyal local activists.

The election results

Notwithstanding such dubious symptoms, many observers would however concede that the Swapo dominance only reconfirmed the firm and efficient control exercised over the Namibian electorate by the party in political power. If only to the dislike of some, Swapo’s political rule in Namibia for a series of reasons – not least the failure of dissenting views to organize effectively in opposition parties - resembles all features of a dominant party system. This is hardly reason enough to blame the winner.

For the first time a considerable number of young voters were able to express their preferences. These “born free” were during the pre-election build up due to their sizeable numbers considered to be of some influence over the outcome and hence a much speculated “unknown variable”. According to an Afrobarometer survey of late 2008 Swapo underperformed in terms of party attachment among younger voters (18-34 years). Core support remained primarily with “older, rural, and respondents with less education, especially from the north-central areas”, while “urban, female, and younger voters represent a growing challenge for the ruling party in terms of party closeness or identification”. 

This certainly could not add comfort to the political minds in Swapo and could have positively influenced the campaign strategy as for the first time the cultivation of the liberation gospel was complemented by an emphasis on the claimed achievements under a Swapo government since Independence. At the end, the “born free” seemingly did not play any decisive role in changing the voting pattern. One among those casting their vote for the first time might offer some insights into the motivations, which risk to be overlooked by the urban-based perspectives of many of the analytical observers. In recalling her grandfather during her childhood days in the rural North, she states:

“Today he lies peacefully in his grave alongside a tarred road that does not witness the darkness I was so terrified of during my village-life experience. My people in that former little village of Bukalo are now building on plots of a declared settlement that harbours two secondary schools within five minutes walk from each other. For every visit home, I see no sight of any teenage girl walking long distances to a waterhole. I drink clean ice-cold water from almost every home in this growing settlement. That means our tax dollars have been invested in building, rebuilding and upgrading our nation’s infrastructure, improving our children’s education and the livelihood of our communities. A vision was set, thus my choice was finally made because I want to see history being made for the reference of the current generation. This is for my grandparents and all of my family that came before them that did not live to see how far our country has come. I want to see the struggles and sacrifices that they made honoured. Today I voted in an environment where all Namibians from different backgrounds were able to shake hands in a voting queue and use those long hours to share their humour without looking at each other with questioning eyes.”      

National Assembly Elections

Acknowledging the relevance of such perception as part of the present social reality of Namibia it should finally come as no shocking surprise that the official end results announced by the ECN  confirmed the hegemonic status of Swapo despite the RDP’s claims and earlier expectations that it would be a serious contender. The table is compiled on the basis of the official figures released. It documents that little has changed in terms of the fundamental political power relations for the forthcoming five-year legislative period.