Kae Matundu-Tjiparuro
This may sound like a nonsensical and rhetorical question, if not altogether useless and belated, in view of the fact that we just concluded these very elections and are only now awaiting the results thereof.
Be that as it may, compared to the Presidential and National Assembly Elections, there’s no denying that the Regional and Local Authority Elections are, ordinarily, meant to bring politicians closer to people and thereby service delivery. By making councillors elected directly by those they are meant to serve in their regions and localities.
Ideally councillors are thus not only known to most, if not all, of the people in the regions and localities, but equally and as much, are very familiar with their various socio-economic eccentricities. Thus, by voting for them, people are not only voting for the sake of voting. Voting is being reduced to just another would-be democratic exercise. Through and whereby they, as would and has been year after year. But purposefully. So that their immediate living and/or existential environs are bettered.
Yours Truly Ideologically cannot but emphasise that the end game is no less and/or no more than improving the living standards of the inhabitants and residents in the regions, constituencies and localities. As the candidates themselves should be well aware, but that they rarely seem to appreciate, casting anyone’s vote is and has not been the beginning nor the end. Never ever! Even with respect to the just-concluded elections. Something the candidates chosen by the voters hardly seem, wilfully so, to be aware of and value. This is partly due to the internal structural democratic processes, which are often taken for granted and only exist in theory, not in practice or reality.
If and where existing being manipulated by political bigwigs through cronyism.
Simply, voters have been allowing themselves to be taken for granted. By not putting much and/or any premium on why any candidate may deserve their votes. Endless empty promises are all candidates have been dishing and brandishing to the voters. Not to mention the temporary comforts vulnerable voters have been enticed with. Subjected during campaigns when the vulnerable voters are held hostage and enslaved with abundant niceties by some unscrupulous would-be political saviours who are no more and no better than scramblers for their votes. Turning the impoverished ghettoes of the vulnerable and susceptible voters into siege fortresses for their votes in a secluded rendezvous. Safe reservoir for largely intoxicated voters stuffed with substances. Where they are held and pampered until voting day and then transported to polling stations.
Candidates are visible only once in a blue moon during their tenures, close to elections. When they are awakened from their political hibernations. This is not the case with voters. Throughout they have to wrestle and fend for themselves to put something on the table. To make up for the empty promises of their would-be political saviours. Joining the primaries scrambles. Sometimes to their disappointments, as more often than not, the democratic processes at play are highly fraught, resulting in dystopia. Most of the times resulting in candidates being imposed on them by the administrative machineries of the structures that be, especially the higher echelons. Having just emerged from these elections and awaiting some, if not most, of the results, all the signals were there with the bigwigs of some of the household political parties dominating the campaigns more than such campaigns being led by the community leaders themselves. The political bigwigs fronting the campaigns, which are supposed to be local, constituency-based and regional, speak volumes about the disconnect between the candidates and people. And to the fact that ultimately the candidates are not the choices of the people themselves but imposed and thrust upon them and their localities. Reports abound of councillors who do not and have not been residing in their would-be municipal areas and/or constituencies. Pointing to the phenomenon of imposition on the people. Which points ultimately to a rotten democratic system of patronage, favouritism, nepotism, and what-have-you. This is actually where the rot begins permeating through regional and local governance. There’s no denying that this has been the state of affairs since the advent of regional and local government in Namibia, with no notable improvement from one election period to the other.
Indeed there are and have been exceptions in this regard, but they have been few and far between. We just went through another round of elections. Unbeknownst to the politicians, if those who are supposed to be serving people and delivering services can and may be referred to as politicians, people have been excited to vote. Going to all extremes. Some who are working in cities and/or towns are going back to register in their regions so that come election they could go back and vote there. Indeed they did go back and vote there. This being on their own expenses. Not on that of those who aspire to be elected as councillors. This underlines the fact that these elections are, more than anything, about the people and for themselves. It is not about political greediness and/or hunger for power. It is about the people themselves, the delivery of service and last but not least, prosperity, even minimal, as they have been made accustomed to through years of non-delivery and neglect.
With the elections now over, what remains is to hear and see who the people, this time around, have once again cursed. Not so much through their own choice as having too few choices. Instead of having higher expectations, theirs cannot but be a matter of waiting and seeing and, at best, hoping. Because over the last couple of years they have been, more than anything, fed with empty promises of waiting and hoping.
The trend over the last couple of years on the regional and local political scene has been a drift away from political parties towards either independent candidates and/or ratepayers’ associations. Like the Outjo Residents Association (ORA), with all its candidates appearing to have been locals organically rooted in Outjo and its environs. With no bigwig domination and mentality, is any cue.
The 2025 regional and local authorities elections are now done and dusted, but Yours Truly Ideologically cannot imagine what awaits our inhabitants and residents all over the country. In fact, this is not something to be left to imaginations, given past performances of various regional councils, constituencies, municipalities and settlements. But the sad thing is that some of the bench-warming and politically blind loyal are likely returning without any hesitation or any accounting and/or assessment of their past performances. With those with an iota of integrity not comradely enough and thus not fit for anointment.
