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By Asser Ntinda

The people have spoken, loudly and clearly. Namibians have firmly given SWAPO Party another five-year mandate to govern the country with more than a two-thirds majority. This mandate was handed over to SWAPO Party amidst negative reports against it in some local newspapers and a notorious human rights organization, the so called National Society for Human Rights, NSHR.

The Namibian, notorious for its anti-SWAPO antics, did all it could to portray SWAPO Party in negative terms, while frog marching the Rally for Democracy and Progress, RDP, to every rally, even where there were virtually few people. The Namibian never even questioned RDP’s tactic of bussing in people from various regions to make its crowd impressive. It is The Namibian which has virtually made these elections to look like a race between SWAPO Party and RDP, virtually overshadowing and disadvantaging other opposition parties in its coverage.

Just look at these lead headlines which appeared in The Namibian prior to the election: “Voter registration chaos,” “Political tensions flare,” “Fears over voters roll,” “Namibia highly corrupt,” “Pre-poll payout bonanza,” “Govt owes City N$32 million,” and many others. These may look like ordinary headlines about good hot running stories. Assuming so is to miss the point. There is an editorial slant to all those stories aimed at tarnishing the image of the SWAPO Party government in the eyes of the voters. The choice of those stories and the manner in which they were prominently headlined were meant to project the SWAPO Party government as “incompetent, careless and inefficient,” while projecting RDP as an “alternative.” That was very clear in the manner in which RDP and its president Hidipo Hamutenya have been covered by The Namibian.

One thing Gwendolyn Lister, Editor of The Namibian, has been craving for is to reduce SWAPO Party’s two thirds majority in Parliament. Having lost hope in the existing opposition parties, useless as they are, Gwen has taken it upon herself to incite any defection from SWAPO Party. She has long convinced herself that any “real opposition party would only come from SWAPO Party. Since then, she has interpreted any difference of opinions as a pointer to “serious divisions” within SWAPO Party. She has, with monotonous regularity, followed every spark, however insignificant it is, and presented it a possible division within the Party leadership. Her big meal came when Hidipo Hamutenya finally decided to defect from SWAPO Party and form a rival party, RDP, thereby neatly fitting himself perfectly well into Gwen’s futile dream.

She was happy to see him defecting, and actually encouraged him to do so. While she was happy, she did not realize that she was nurturing a politically frustrated man whose future has been blurred by political opportunism and self-centered egoism. Despite grey areas and missteps in Hidipo’s ill-fated political project, Gwen, like a drugged canary, has danced and pranced herself towards Hamutenya through her endless assortments of oddities, oddballs and outlandish shibboleths mainly fretted out of Phil Ya Nangoloh’s weekly reports.

In a den of political opportunists, perfidy compounds notoriety as political scoundrels and former enemy soldiers gang up to dispute what the SWAPO Party government has achieved since independence. One Sigi Eimbeck, a former police officer in the then notorious South West Africa Territory Force, SWATF, wrote a piece which appeared in The Namibian on Friday, November 27, 2009, headlined “A call to vote wisely.”

It reads in part: “Dear Namibian voters. All of us not only have a right to vote, but also a patriotic obligation to vote and a responsibility to vote wisely. Any entitled voter who does not vote for change assists the increase of poverty, disease and ignorance. At least 10,000 jobs have to be created every year to eradicate poverty and hunger, but the present government creates and reserves many jobs for foreigners and very few for Namibians.”

Eimbeck’s eyes, like those of Gwen, were set on Hidipo successfully ousting SWAPO Party from power. It is all about the “regime change” doctrine. Just imagine a former SWATF police officer telling Namibians to vote for “regime change!!” Elevated discourse flees through the backdoor. These elections were special. Namibians have been treated to the worst instinct of an errant political class. To read Eimbeck’s piece is to be assailed by the rank adour of hypocrisy and historical fraud.

Gwen can team up with former oppressive police officers but Namibians are not fools. They know the bondage of oppression from which SWAPO Party alone has delivered them. It is too soon for them to forget the pain they had gone through and believe the craps Gwen and Eimbeck have churned out in the run up to the elections. Last week’s election has proven that The Namibian is not the link between the masses and their elected representatives. That point must be drilled into Gwen’s head. The way the people voted shows that they don’t believe the antics that she churns out every week. How do you take it seriously when it just reported that SWAPO Party got two votes, while RDP got 3600 in Ohalushu in Ohangwena Region? The population of Ohalushu is not even that big! That is how silly The Namibian has become and nobody takes it seriously. Namibians have overwhelmingly trashed those negative reports and voted wisely – for peace, stability and continuity.

The biggest casualty in these elections has been the Congress of Democrats, CoD. Ben Ulenga spent more time fighting for parliamentary cheques with Nora Schiming-Chase that he had little time to campaign. As a result, CoD is finished. RDP will suffer the same fate. It will not grow beyond what it is today. What is clear is that SWAPO Party remains the undisputed political home for the majority of The Namibian people. Congratulations to all those who have voted for SWAPO Party and its President Hifikepunye Pohamba. Viva SWAPO!