Impunity is Strengthened by Docile Citizens

Ten years ago, Tobie Aupindi, then a businessman before becoming a member of parliament, made a prediction about the future of the youth inside Swapo.

He said the Swapo youth league leadership would have no choice but to be docile given what had happened to its militant leadership.

At the time, the Swapo elite successfully sought to ‘quarantine’ voices that agitated for a radical policy shift to the left.

As youth league spokesperson, I was responsible for mobilising the youth and society on radical policy shifts championed by the league.

As a result, four of us were suspended and expelled in 2014 and 2015.

Youth leaders seen as moderate were installed as Aupindi had foreseen.

The youth league never recovered. The radical policy shift for the masses of our people had to be pursued elsewhere.

Our departure saw the youth revert to factory setting, the general zombie tendency (GZT), which expects one to see nothing, say nothing, do nothing.

We went to court and won our case against both the suspensions and expulsions.

Two of our number returned to the Swapo fold; the other two continued with Affirmative Repositioning (AR).

‘PASSING THE TOMBO’

The AR movement, apart from becoming the third largest political party in last month’s elections, has emerged as a bastion of the politics of emancipation.

Even Swapo MPs, government officials – including diplomats and pastors – prefer to report wrongdoing to the AR movement.

AR’s successes did not end the GZT inside the ruling party; the Swapo elite continued taking our country from one crisis to another.
With our departure, no one was left to challenge internal wrongdoing.

Against the provisions of the party constitution, then Swapo president Hifikepunye Pohamba postured to transfer party presidential powers from himself to president Hage Geingob.

Apart from a few like Pendukeni Ivula-Ithana, docile Swapo members did not challenge this gentlemen’s arrangement, where presidential power was ‘skeifed’, or handed over, as if it was a glass of tombo.

While some of these issues may appear to be internal, the party’s inner chaos snowballs and contaminates our public space and institutions.

When the late president Hage Geingob died, then vice president Nangolo Mbumba was questionably sworn in as president instead of acting president.

Article 34 (1) of the Constitution meant different things to different people.

Docile Namibians did not challenge the situation, including lawyers and their associations, beyond WhatsApp status complaints.
Constitutional provisions were referred to as “semantics”. 

CHAOTIC ELECTIONS

Swapo then trampled on its own constitution, which provided for an extraordinary congress within three months of the death of a president.

However, elusive concepts of ‘unity’ were cited. Interpretation again became an issue.

There was little opposition apart from peripheral voices who went to court, unsuccessfully. 

Having facilitated the Pohamba-Geingob tombo glass-like deal on ‘skeifing’ powers, president Nangolo Mbumba seemed attuned to the concept of docile citizens.

When faced with chaotic elections, Mbumba added an extra two voting days. Again, the constitutionality of this move became an issue.
The president opened voting for some and closed it for others. Only one polling station was available for the Khomas region, with close to 300 000 registered voters. Okatyali constituency, with less than 2 000 registered voters, had four polling stations.

Given the opportunity, and given the docility of Namibians, Mbumba and the ECN will again subject us to a chaotic election.

Unless something extraordinary occurs, we must be prepared for our politics and institutions to become similar to those of Zimbabwe.

The key lessons from 2024 that Namibians must internalise is that impunity (taking actions knowing there will be no consequences) is strengthened by docile citizens.

THE FIGHT CONTINUES

We need to develop the necessary capacities and capabilities to detect, fight and defeat the political elites who have taken our country from one crisis to another.

We need to detect corrupt deeds in advance so that we can immediately develop strategies and tactics to fight these actions.

We should not only fight for the sake of newspaper headlines but to ensure that we defeat evil.

The impunity we continue to experience cannot continue. The consequences for our children are too ghastly to contemplate. It must end.

Without the necessary capacities and capabilities to detect, fight and defeat, we will continue to be zombified and our country will be shared and transferred between elites like a glass of tombo.

Let’s lick our 2024 wounds, retreat to regroup with a promise that never, and never again, shall we be subjected to these things.

Let’s detect, fight and defeat impunity for the motherland and our children’s future. 

• • Job Shipululo Amupanda is activist-in-chief of the Affirmative Repositioning movement and a former mayor of Windhoek. He has taught political studies at the University of Namibia over the past 10 years.