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By Asser Ntinda

Namibians must be applauded and commended for the manner and maturity in which they conducted themselves before, during and after the elections. The final results are officially out now. The victor is known. So too are the losers, politically bruised and shamed as they are. SWAPO Party, has once again, emerged as the undisputed political home of the majority of the Namibian people.

Political doomsayers, many as they were, have been knocked off balance. Their predictions are horribly way off the mark. They must swallow the bitter pill. The elections were free and fair by all standards. Even those opposition parties who wanted to take the Electoral Commission of Namibia, ECN, to court have realized the futility and stupidity of their actions.

They have now dropped going to court and opted for a petition which they now want to present to the High Court today, Friday, 11, 2009. When a man’s pride is wounded, his desperation irrationally defies logic and understanding. The fact that they are no longer going to court is testimony to the fact that these elections were free and fair.

Any attempt to challenge the credibility of these elections in a court of law was going to be futile, silly and costly. For, the probability of such a case being dismissed with costs is very high. Judges do not waste their time arguing about the merits and demerits of shoddy cases lacking in evidence.

Of course every case must be heard, but it must be heard on merit and at a cost. Even some lawyers who are not so friendly to SWAPO Party have cautioned against such a move, saying that it will boomerang. True, it is not easy to accept defeat, but challenging an outcome of an election on flimsy grounds is equally a fool’s choice.

Predictions were made before the elections by some newspapers and nongovernmental organizations, NGOs. Some of them went out of their nonpartisan position to heavily campaign for the Rally for Democracy and Progress, RDP, which they thought would not only reduce SWAPO Party’s two-thirds majority, but that it also stood a “better” chance to win the elections and form the government.

Topping the list of these ill-wishers are none other than the Editor of The Namibian, Gwen Lister, and Phil Ya Nangoloh of the National Society for Human Rights, NSHR. They have been relentless in their demonization campaign against SWAPO Party. When the results officially dropped in, they were stone silent.

Lister grudgingly accepted the result, but not before she had made some nasty and silly editorial slants. Yes, she says, SWAPO Party has “won” but only because people in the northern regions “turned out in numbers that probably exceed even the voters’ roll projections….”

More insulting was this: “This can probably be attributed above all to the loyalty quotient as well as to SWAPO mobilization strategies in those areas, rather than being a ‘thinking vote.’” So, we are told by Gwen that that northern regions are not a “thinking vote.” She means people in the northern regions are fools. I resent this description. Why she thinks they do not think, I do not know. But this is a serious insult to the mothers and fathers and their children and grand children in those regions.

These are the people who sustained the war for liberation for 23 good solid years. Had it not been for their support, combatants of the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, PLAN, SWAPO’s then military wing, could not have waged that war to its logical conclusion. Those people knew what they were doing, just as they know what they are doing today. They voted wisely.

What hurts Gwen most is the fact that they have out-rightly rejected her anti- SWAPO Party propaganda. If rejecting her propaganda means that those people are not a “thinking vote,” then Gwen is silly. She has horribly underestimated their intelligence. Those people think, far deeper than Gwen does. They are also wiser than Gwen is. She has done all she could to win them over, but she has dismally failed to do so.

The reason why The Namibian translates its stories in Oshiwambo, rather than in any other local languages, was informed by that silly notion that one day she will win them over. For, why does The Namibian only translate its stories for a none “thinking vote?” Gwen should just accept that her Presidential candidate, Hidipo Hamutenya, has suffered a stunning and humiliating electoral defeat, despite the massive publicity that she has given him. He is politically finished. Neither Hidipo nor RDP will ever grow beyond what they got in the last elections. If it hurts, so be it. When Gwen says that “RDP has perhaps fallen below the expectation of some,” that “some” includes her and other hibernators.

The people have spoken. Their popular judgment must be respected. President Hifikepunye Pohamba must be commended for having said that the SWAPO Party 2009 Election Manifesto should be the guiding document for all civil servants. People voted in such large numbers because they are fed up with hibernators. What is it that they cannot do that hibernators do? Let us heed their voices and their votes.