Swapo’s Kavango charm offensive

With regions south of the red line becoming increasingly unpredictable in terms of their voting patterns, the ruling party Swapo has embarked on a consistent charm offensive in Kavango East and Kavango West, hoping victory there - and in its traditional four northern regions - will suffice to carry it across the 50% mark in the November general election.The past two years have been marked by regular visits by Swapo and government leaders to the Kavango regions, which may prove more important to the party than they have ever been amid its dwindling fortunes in the Hardap, //Karas, Erongo, Omaheke and Kunene regions.Omusati, Oshana, Ohangwena and Oshikoto remain bedrocks of Swapo support, but their loyalty is deemed inadequate in the greater scheme of things, hence the frequenting of Kavango East and Kavango West to help boost the party’s numbers nationally.All roads lead to RunduIn July alone, party leaders made several rounds in Rundu. The Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) organised a question-and-answer session on 19 July, where party candidate Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah was the keynote speaker. Nandi-Ndaitwah also attended a rushed groundbreaking ceremony for a civic office in Nkurenkuru in last month, but the event turned into a farce as no brick could be laid because the organisers were not prepared.Last weekend, just a week later, the party held another rally – addressed by politburo member Sisa Namandje and other party leaders. Nandi-Ndaitwah also visited Kavango East in March for a ‘familiarisation visit’ to the green scheme projects in the region.Desperate moveSPYL’s series of regional meetings, held in all 14 regions, were best attended in Kavango West, with 150 attendees, followed by Kavango East at 71. Kunene, where the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) are dominating Swapo, had the lowest attendance of the SPYL meetings, with a paltry six people in attendance, according to information obtained by Namibian Sun. In April, Swapo secretary-general Sophia Shaningwa visited Kavango West to extinguish raging fires of discontent among members of the party’s Kapako district executive committee, who publicly announced that they will no longer be pushed around or be ‘voting cows’, as people in the two regions are often referred to, due to their unshakable loyalty to the ruling party in spite of a perceived lack of development in their area.Shaningwa yesterday said Swapo is hard at work to sway voters from all corners of the country, and not just the two Kavango regions.She was responding to suggestions by political commentator and Kavango native Ndumba Kamwanyah, who remarked that “Swapo has been dispatching its top leaders to the Kavango regions, hoping to rekindle the support that has waned over the years”.Kamwanyah said the opening of the Gcaruhwa clinic in Kavango West this week - 12 years after its construction started in 2012 - was a desperate move by Swapo to salvage support in the region.‘Too little, too late’“The recent attempts by the Swapo-led government to court the Kavango people with groundbreaking ceremonies and opening clinics promised 12 years ago are seen as disingenuous and ‘too little, too late’. The timing of these efforts, coinciding with the fear of dropping below a majority, has not gone unnoticed by the electorate,” the University of Namibia academic commented.“As Namibia heads into the national and presidential elections, the two Kavango regions have emerged as critical swing areas that could significantly influence the outcome,” Kamwanyah explained.“Historically, these regions have been pivotal in determining the success of the Swapo Party, which has long prided itself on being the party of the people. However, the current political climate suggests that Swapo’s dominance in the two regions is under serious threat, and the party is acutely aware of this,” he said.No discriminationShaningwa denied that the ruling party’s recent obsession with Kavango was out of panic.“I don’t know what the commentator wants to tell us. We have a dedicated programme of where to go within the 14 regions of the country and we don’t neglect any region. If he has that opinion, that is his opinion and we don’t buy into his opinion,” she said.“We are in the west, the south, the north and all over. We are doing what we are supposed to do. The performances have been all over. It is really disappointing that a commentator can come up with something of that notion. As a party, we are not discriminating against anybody, we need a vote from everybody.”kenya@namibiansun.com

Swapo’s Kavango charm offensive

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Namibian Sun 2024-12-04

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Swapo’s Kavango charm offensive

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Namibian Sun 2024-12-04

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