The Illusion of Scarcity and the Buying of Votes

It’s election season and, once again, we are watching everyone play the nasty game of promises and propaganda.

Now, if you scroll on Instagram, you will see influencers – many of whom generally never participate in any public political discourse – peddling Swapo shirts and telling followers that Namibia getting its first female president is “History in the making”.

While that may technically be true, I don’t think it’s all that exciting when the first female president is just an arm of the same greedy regime. It’s kind of like how Obama was America’s first black president, but continued to perpetuate the warmonger energy of his predecessors. Kind of anti-climactic.

The question I see most people asking these influencers is, “how much did you get paid?”, because despite their best efforts to seem like they genuinely align with the values of the Fishrot beneficiary party, the truth is clear to anyone with a brain.

It would be easy for me to judge these people, but that is not what this is about, since I know Namibians are hungry, and it’s not that easy to say “no” to a cheque because of your or someone else’s principles and opinions. On the other hand, everyone is entitled to campaign and vote for whoever they want.

That’s what I want to talk about today. The fact that one must sell their political voice for a pay day is not at all surprising. We are a country where it seems like there isn’t enough for all of us to get a share.

But I can assure you, this perceived scarcity that dominates the mindset of so many of us is something that is intentionally manufactured and maintained by those in charge.

Let me use Kylie Jenner as a quick example. When she launched her first make-up line, she sold out almost instantly, and many young customers were entranced by the idea of owning something exclusive.

What we didn’t know, however, was that Jenner only produced and sold 15 000 lip kits the first time round, despite having hundreds of millions of online followers.

That is how you make people believe that there is only so much wealth in circulation, and if they don’t act fast or say yes, they’ll miss out. It’s about making people feel like they have to fight for a piece of something valuable.

I can’t help but draw a parallel between this manipulation and what’s happening in Namibia today.

We live in a society where people believe there is only so much to go around, and that the only way to get a piece of it is to align yourself with the right political forces. This sense of scarcity is what drives many Namibians to sell their votes in exchange for quick, empty promises, even if their logical mind tells them not to.

It’s not a coincidence that every election season the same game is played. Handouts, food and cash are all strategically placed before the most vulnerable, playing into the fear that if they don’t take it, they might miss out.

This is so deeply ingrained that people who might otherwise demand better jobs, better infrastructure or a better future are instead okay with a quick payout in exchange for their voice.

I’ve even been offered foreign currency to use my platform as a journalist to slander some particular politicians, but I declined. I don’t want quick money, I want a society where journalism is too lucrative for any of us to be bought.

The system is designed to keep us thinking that the pie is small and that the only way to get a slice is to take whatever we can. But, as I’ve learned from the Kylie Jenner lip kit saga, sometimes the scarcity is just an illusion.

It’s time for us to wake up and demand more. We should not be bound to any political party, our loyalty should be to our country rather, to our fellow Namibians who are living in poverty and dying in squalor, waiting for change that never comes.

What if we stopped playing into the narrative of scarcity and started understanding we as citizens are entitled to the nation’s wealth and resources?

I’ve always loved anarchy as an ideology and I think you all should look into it. Many believe it is all about chaos, but in its truest form, it is the rejection of systems that do not serve the people.

Being anarchists is about taking ownership of your future and demanding better for all.

Imagine a world where the ruling party wasn’t spending millions on flashy campaigns, and that money instead went into the development of infrastructure, the building of schools and hospitals and the development of job-creating industries.

I know this is Swapo’s biggest fear, but maybe then we wouldn’t have a starving population that can be bought. Perhaps then we would have a robust political arena where policies were debated and citizens made choices based on actual issues.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

– Anne Hambuda is a writer, social
commentator and poet. Follow her
online or email her at
annehambuda@gmail.com for more.