The chess game of sloppy politics of RDP

By P. Haindongo

In the game of chess the players move their pieces by maneuvering on the chessboard in such a way that opponent cannot prevent the strategic piece usually the King from being taken or captured. In politics, players compete for a political space and the strategic pieces are the electorates.

This is what the Founding President and Father of the Namibian alluded to in his misquoted speech. The Founding President talked at length about the prerequisite of sending children to school so that they could be well educated as scientists, doctors and engineers just to mention, but a few. Due to a cobweb of deception that has entangled most of the media houses and some few clergy men who masquerade themselves as wolves in sheep garments, the words of the Founding President were twisted to suit the sloppiness of the spider politics.

With the above brief narrative, this brings us to the metamorphosis of RDP and its self inflicted defeat strategies. Metamorphosis is a systematic development of an organism from its inception to its final form. For instance, an insect like Acronicta Americana starts as an egg and then it develops into a worm. It then changes its form into a cocoon before taking its final shape into a butterfly. No matter how different its forms look it will not amount to anything else except its final form, which is a spider or butterfly. To the public, RDP came into being in 2007, but that was just a name coined to an idea that has been in the mind of somebody. That idea developed from a figment of imagination and metamorphosed into shouting spree of unimaginable proportion. Everything started in the fashion of a spider constructing a cobweb, but the only thing the spider needed was a place from where to construct its cobweb. After being knocked down, due to lack chess game political skills, those who are leading RDP today realized that they have been crowned out of space to spread their cobweb within SWAPO, then the alternative became a rule rather than the exception.

RDP was formed for two reasons, one is for Hidipo Hamutenya to be President and the other is that some people who are now part of RDP could not stomach the idea of being led by some people whom they have been competing with. This sounds to be farfetched, but look deep and you can clearly spot the differences. The circumstances under which RDP was formed remained mysterious as the characters of an insect. It was formed to implement Nyamu notes, but even when it became evidently clear that it was about to be formed the leaders were still in denial mode. The leadership was known, but they kept on denying. Why did they deny their principles if they have no detrimental effects to the society?

Anything which is hidden is something worrisome. What they expected was to capture the king piece, but what they got in return was a loss of their own. When it became clear that the chess game was not in their favour, they resorted to what they know best, which is the behind the scene play, using some characters who parade themselves as human right activities, clergymen and journalists. They are all united in one thing, which is the destruction of the SWAPO Party.

RDP members were mostly formerly from SWAPO and the party created itself while they were still within the party. This is like a virus that lives within its horst but with the intention of extracting itself from the host one day. Like any parasitical organism, it cannot survive without the host as it feeds on the host. Any organism that feeds on its own kind has no normal behavior. A baby that its eating the mother while in the stomach is a cannibal. RDP’s metamorphosis behavior is noting less than political hooliganism.

They started to play a role of a spoiler and have vested much energy to taint the electoral process so that Namibia would be perceived to be in turmoil. History is fond of repeating itself, CoD started in similar hyper path, but unfortunately it has become a deflated balloon. CoD has become a party of factions fighting for positions and checks from the Parliamentary account.

Those who were once upon a time boasting with confidence of being members of CoD are now running away like chickens fleeing from the fox that has entered the corral. The point missed by most of those who are forming parties and their praise singers is that they form parties out of selfish emotion rather than fundamental problems affecting the society. Any party formed under dubious circumstances is like a house built on top of a volcanic hill. CoD can attest to that and RDP is set to follow the same route. They are now shouting like the prophets of Baal at the Mount Carmel, but no one is listening. The RDP President in particular has been on a shouting spree; fabricating all kinds of lies to win votes. At Okongo, while addressing a meeting on Saturday the 31 October 2009, he lied that RDP had forced the leadership of the SWAPO Party to comply with the SADC protocol which stipulates that counting must be done at each polling station. If Hamutenya is claiming that SWAPO has been cheating in every election, then he must provide evidence. Failure to do so must result in the long arm of law grabbing him. He now talks like a political drunkard who is no longer in control of his words. To come back to the core ideology of RDP, let us again revisit the Nyamu notes. Those notes call for civil servants to provide poor service in order for people to blame SWAPO. How can one call for people to sabotage Government services and then ask the electorate to vote for you to repair the same services and infrastructure that you have destroyed. Either you are for destruction or for development.

You cannot set a house on fire in order to demonstrate your skills as a firefighter.

In another move of feeding on its own kind, RDP embarked on a grand shoplifting scheme to steal emblems from other parties such as COD flag and SWAPO symbols. The RDP flag and RP are the same even the abbreviations of the parties’ names with exception that RDP managed to squeeze D in between R and P. They even attempted to cannibalize the title of Father of the Nation. The RDP President goes around wearing a cap written “Get Smart” as if to attract attention, but smart people are known by their actions, creativity and originality of ideas and deeds; not by wearing a cap telling people how smart you are.

People want to hear how the means of production (land, labour and capital) should be distributed in a society. SWAPO’s ideology is clear, that the ideals of socialism are superior to the greed of unmitigated capitalism. How smart are the RDP when they have its shouting Secretary for Information and Publicity telling people at a meeting that Sam Nujoma founded SWANU. Anyway Namibinga is a failed business man and the carcasses of his shops that have now been taken over by cockroaches are self evident. How can someone be a visionary if he failed to manage his business activities? He wants to rewrite history which he does not understand. Everybody knows that SWAPO was formed on 19 April 1960, with Comrade Sam Nujoma as its President, from which account of history is Namibinga quoting that Sam Nujoma founded SWANU? Is he suffering from memory loss or purely a matter of blind ignorance?

Apparently, RDP and CoD instructed their lawyers to force NBC to withdraw what they termed as “stupid resolution of SWAPO and others”. It is clear that Hidipo is scared to his bones about the fate that will be delivered to him on the 27th and 28th of November 2009. His actions and constant focus on the soft targets such as Namprint and NBC are a clear indication that they have no political programme to offer to the Namibian people.

People are smarter than the RDP leadership even though they do not wear caps written get smart. The reason why the RDP and CoD acted in such way is because they are still novices in the game of chess. SWAPO is likely to pay for its air time slots. How smart is RDP and CoD when they don’t even contemplate the consequences of their own action. It is like a person who talks and thinks later. Most opposition parties have a tendency to find some lousy excuses to justify why they are beaten in elections. It is clear that RDP and CoD also want to find some justification why the people of Namibia are going to reject them at the November polls. The CoD tried it with their bogus Okahandja dry river ballot fiasco and the re-count which only reconfirmed the SWAPO Party as the winner. RDP and Cod are now ostriches of the same feather sticking their head in mud of delusion. They would want their political masters and financiers of their political projects to believe that they are beaten because the winning party cheats. The Namibian people know too well that RDP, CoD and other projects have nothing to offer and all they say at various platforms is full of lies and half cooked stories. How can they expect people to trust their parties when what they do is not trust worthy? Next time before Hidipo puts on a cap he must know people are well ahead of him thinking wise.

This sloppy politics of RDP resembles a biblical story told in the book of Daniel. There, we are told, that there was a tree that grew tall so that the birds of the air nested in its branches and fed on its fruits and the beasts of the earth found shelter under its shade. At a strike of the command from the watch tower, the tree was hewed down, so that birds of the air could no longer nest on its branches nor feed on its fruits while the beasts of the earth were left stranded because the tree could no longer provide shelter. When you look at this biblical story it has similarity with something that is happening in Namibia.

For many years somebody convinced himself that he would be the ultimate savior of Namibia. He created a myth similar to the biblical tree, expecting birds of the air to nest on its branches and feed on its fruits. Some have been deceived and will be left stranded after their favorite tree is mowed down.

In 2004, many Namibians looked forward to the election with enthusiasm, but to the surprise of unsuspecting public, a cobweb of spider politics was being created to entangle as many as the spider could spread its web. One thing is clear only flies and flying bugs get entangled on the spider’s web. Survival is for the fittest, hence similar to chess game only those with master skills will outmaneuver those who solely rely on the theory of entanglement. After all, Acronicta Americana is nothing but a butterfly even though it is sometimes takes the shape a slimy caterpillar or a worm hibernating in a cocoon. The grand chess game is set for the 27th and the 28th of November 2009. It will determine the fate of the strategic pieces of the players, who will have the King captured or capture most of strategic pieces of other players.