NAMIBIA: Election expected to be low-key

Photo: IRIN

Hifikepunye Pohamba is Nujoma's chosen successor

WINDHOEK, 12 November 2004 (IRIN) - Namibia goes to the polls on 15 and 16 November in elections that will mark the end of President Sam Nujoma's rule. Nujoma, a liberation hero and veteran leader of the ruling SWAPO party, has hand-picked Hifikepunye Pohamba as the party's presidential candidate in the coming election. About 977,400 registered voters in a population of 1.82 million will choose candidates for the 72 seats in parliament according to a party listing, while the president will be elected by direct vote. Nine political parties are contesting, and there are seven presidential candidates in the field. The election campaign, which started some four weeks ago, has been lacklustre as opposition parties claim their lack of campaign funds has been an impediment. It appears to be a foregone conclusion that SWAPO, which has won every election since independence in 1990, will win again. "The election has already taken place in May, when SWAPO members voted for a presidential candidate," said Robin Sherbourne, researcher and analyst at the Institute for Public Policy Research. "Last month SWAPO selected its 72 candidates for the party list, and from that a new cabinet will be chosen." A new monthly publication, 'Insight', also blames the party list system. "The manner in which these lists were drawn up may, in part, explain the arguably low level of interest in the upcoming general and presidential elections," the magazine noted. "The only interesting thing about this election is whether the Congress of Democrats (COD) party will become the official opposition," said Graham Hopwood, independent researcher and political analyst. "The party, which was established only five years ago, made the 1999 [election] quite exciting and, overall, campaigning was more energetic then," he noted. The Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) has been the official opposition since 1990. Despite a loss of seats from the initial 21 it held to just 7 in 1999, the DTA retains its status as official opposition through an alliance with a minority party, which has two seats. The COD has 7 seats in parliament. Voters hoping for a generation shift in the SWAPO leadership were disappointed when the 69-year-old Pohamba was chosen as Nujoma's successor. Nujoma, 75, actively campaigned for Pohamba and appears to be relieved that continuity is secured, with himself remaining as SWAPO president until 2007. Apart from a short, futile attempt in August 1999 by armed separatists in the northeastern Caprivi region to secede, and intermittent cross-border raids by Angolan rebel group, UNITA, which stopped in the early 2000s, Namibia has been a stable democracy since independence. Nujoma weathered local and international criticism for sending some 2,000 troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998 to assist that country's late president Laurent Kabila in a war with rebel groups. Despite significant foreign investment, good road, rail and port infrastructure, and modern telecommunications systems, unemployment remains high at 40 percent and the government's plans to expropriate white-owned farms to speed up its land reform process has caused uncertainty among the country's 75,000 white citizens. "The concern is that Namibia might follow a path similar to Zimbabwe. The letters with the intention to expropriate their land, sent to 20 farmers a few months ago, has definitely reduced investor confidence", a European Union diplomat told IRIN. Key areas where Namibia has failed to make adequate progress in terms of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are poverty alleviation, food security and HIV/AIDS. In the government's progress report on the MDGs, released this week, it acknowledged that more had to be done. The report projected that "by 2005 there will be an estimated 100,000 [AIDS] orphans in Namibia". Although Namibia introduced antiretroviral treatment in various state hospitals last year, some 24,000 people are projected to die of AIDS in 2005. The country's infection rate is around 22 percent.