EDITORIAL: Opposition’s pain is Swapo’s gain
The chaos in our opposition parties is a healthy diet for Swapo ahead of the November elections. The latest episode in this never-ending soap opera is the drama that engulfed the Nudo party last weekend – birthing a third postponement of its long pending elective congress.
Their opponents, who by the way include other opposition parties, must be licking their lips at the unfolding theatrics. Nudo is by no means a Swapo competitor, except in the Omaheke and Otjozondjupa regions where its votes are warmly incubated.
But even beyond the Nudo spectacle, the opposition space is littered with many schoolboy houses of cards. Look, for example, at the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF). All hats and no cattle. You can’t ask Yvonne Dausab to declare whether she’s a man or woman while your financials are a shambles. Maybe, and we are playing devil’s advocate here, the funds the party utilised to compensate a man in Mix settlement for slapping a Swapo politician came from the parliamentary subsidy NEFF receives. How do you explain that to auditors?
Don’t get us wrong, Swapo isn’t a saint. At best, it is the better devil. This is a party that has long thrown its constitution in the wastebasket. Rule of man is the new order – hence the postponement of its extraordinary congress to a date not provided for in party statutes. The whole political space is a wasteland. It’s as arid as the Namib. Nothing democratic can germinate from an environment like that.
Their opponents, who by the way include other opposition parties, must be licking their lips at the unfolding theatrics. Nudo is by no means a Swapo competitor, except in the Omaheke and Otjozondjupa regions where its votes are warmly incubated.
But even beyond the Nudo spectacle, the opposition space is littered with many schoolboy houses of cards. Look, for example, at the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF). All hats and no cattle. You can’t ask Yvonne Dausab to declare whether she’s a man or woman while your financials are a shambles. Maybe, and we are playing devil’s advocate here, the funds the party utilised to compensate a man in Mix settlement for slapping a Swapo politician came from the parliamentary subsidy NEFF receives. How do you explain that to auditors?
Don’t get us wrong, Swapo isn’t a saint. At best, it is the better devil. This is a party that has long thrown its constitution in the wastebasket. Rule of man is the new order – hence the postponement of its extraordinary congress to a date not provided for in party statutes. The whole political space is a wasteland. It’s as arid as the Namib. Nothing democratic can germinate from an environment like that.
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Namibian Sun
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