The dust hasn’t quite settled on the 2025 Regional Councils and Local Authorities elections, but the political mood across Namibia already feels unmistakably familiar. Swapo, after its stumble in 2020, has found its footing again. The opposition, meanwhile, looks scattered and winded. Add to this the drag of a low-turnout election, the kind that almost always tilts toward incumbents, and the picture that emerges is one of a democracy revealing not just its choices but also its frustrations. What we are witnessing is a shift in how Namibians are engaging with politics: less animated by party colours, more shaped by disillusionment, and more inclined to stay home, leaving the most organised player with the clearest path back to dominance.
Swapo’s comeback, powered partly by turnout
You can’t talk about SWAPO’s resurgence without talking about turnout. The party’s recovery in regions such as Erongo and Hardap doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s intertwined with who showed up at the polls and who didn’t. While young people express the loudest dissatisfaction with the status quo, they also make up the largest share of those who stayed away. Urban voters, who carried the opposition’s momentum five years ago, largely sat this one out. Meanwhile, Swapo’s traditional base, older, rural, and steadily loyal, remained reliable. When fewer voters take part, the political terrain naturally tilts toward the camp best equipped to mobilise its ground forces.
Swapo clearly capitalised on that advantage. Its grassroots structures are still some of the most organised in the country, and its messaging this year, a mix of stability, continuity, and promises of improved local governance, found traction. The party’s gains aren’t simply the result of disengagement by others but the interplay between its organisational strength and the opposition’s inability to sustain the energy of 2020. Fewer voices at the polls meant Swapo’s long-standing machinery could stretch further with less resistance.
IPC’s coastal collapse: the sharpest opposition setback
Nowhere was the opposition’s vulnerability more exposed than at the coast. IPC’s triumphs in Walvis Bay and Swakopmund in 2020 felt, at the time, like a fresh wind blowing through Namibian politics, the moment the urban electorate signalled it was ready for a reset. Five years later, that energy has thinned out. The party’s grip loosened as internal disagreements mounted, and its councils struggled with the messy realities of governance. The problem for IPC was never just running the towns; it was building a durable machine behind the victories.
When turnout plummeted, IPC’s base, young, restless, and often disillusioned, evaporated at the ballot box. Their absence was felt immediately. The coastal losses cut deeper than simple electoral defeat. They undermine IPC’s claim to being the country’s new urban anchor and expose how thin its organisational roots still are. Without structure, cohesion, and local entrenchment, protest politics can only carry a movement so far.
Smaller parties in crisis: AR, PDM, and a devastated LPM
While IPC’s wounds are highly visible, smaller parties suffered blows that may prove more existential. AR remains energetic in rhetoric but limited in reach, struggling to evolve from its activist DNA into something capable of maintaining electoral consistency. PDM’s slide continues, the party shrinking under the weight of internal rifts and an identity crisis it has yet to resolve. Its inability to present itself as a steady alternative in a climate of rising dissatisfaction has allowed others, including independents, to steal the ground beneath its feet.
But no opposition party absorbed a heavier hit than the Landless People’s Movement. Once celebrated as a rising star in the south, LPM’s collapse is as dramatic as it is sobering. Administrative failures, including the embarrassment of failing to register in key constituencies, combined with internal turmoil and inflammatory rhetoric from its leadership, have punched holes into its credibility. The party that once electrified marginalised communities now finds itself shrinking in places that once formed its backbone.
It is impossible not to ask the uncomfortable question: Is this the beginning of the end for LPM?
Unless it undergoes a deep, uncomfortable reckoning and reconnects meaningfully with the ground it once commanded, the movement risks becoming another cautionary tale of early promise dissolving into political memory.
Independents rising: a quiet revolution
Amid all this fragmentation, independent candidates have stepped forward as the unexpected protagonists of 2025. Their rise doesn’t feel like a fluke. It feels like voters are consciously turning away from party politics that has become too noisy, too divisive, or too ineffective for their immediate needs. Independents offer something different: proximity, community familiarity, and a grounding in local issues that larger parties often struggle to match.
But winning without a party is only the first hurdle. Governing without one is something entirely different. Independents now carry the weight of proving they can sustain trust without the infrastructure, funding, or political insulation parties provide. Their success could mark a turning point in Namibian politics, but only if they can convert personal trust into institutional performance.
What the 2025 results tell us about our political future
In many ways, the election reflects a country caught between wanting change and not quite knowing how to achieve it. Swapo’s renewed dominance rests on a combination of its enduring organisational muscle and the opposition’s chronic inability to coordinate, collaborate, or present a united front. The opposition had numbers in many places but never unity.
IPC, PDM, AR, and especially LPM now face a harsh truth: without structural renewal and clearer leadership, they will keep ceding ground to both Swapo and independents. For independents, the moment is ripe but fraught with expectation.
And for those who didn’t vote, the message remains what it has always been: decisions made in your absence still define your future.
Namibia is yearning for renewal. The 2025 results show that renewal will not arrive through anger or aspiration alone. It must be organised, fought for, and earned. Our democracy is maturing, and this election is its latest lesson.
