EDITORIAL: Ideas, not insults, must be fodder for our politics

Our politics need to be cleansed of chronic, cheap mudslinging. We have too many serious challenges to spend our time character-assassinating those we perceive to be adversaries. In a country teeming with armies of unemployed youth, who cares if one of the candidates is ugly or who they went to bed with last night?

Politicians have a moral responsibility to keep our democracy vibrant and to bring solutions to the myriad of issues facing Namibia. Not gossip.

Drought has its teeth out, but many are only interested in name-calling and petty insults. What happened to the robust contest of ideas which has always been the cornerstone of politics?

In many ways, the political discourse has deteriorated and has become a mere hunt for the scalps of those on the other side of the fence.

Meaningful engagement must, in the context of our current quagmire, offer practical solutions and alternatives.

The ball is now in everyone’s court to put Namibia first, while resisting the urge to score cheap political points in another election year.

What the country can ill afford is a political circus that may offer entertainment and newspaper headlines, but which, at the end of the day, further polarises support bases and voters.

The hunger, frustration and desperation of ordinary Namibians should be first on the agenda, not who can best humiliate and malign the other.