Every election season, Namibians get a chance to ask themselves a question that goes deeper than politics: are we really ready to govern?
It’s been 35 years since independence, a lifetime for a country that promised democracy, accountability, and development. And yet, our towns, villages, and regional councils are in distress. Roads crumble. Water taps run dry. Councils are broke, divided, and sometimes downright dysfunctional. The signs of regression are too clear to ignore.
We often talk about democracy as if the act of voting alone guarantees good governance. But democracy, as political philosopher Claude Ake reminded us, is not an end in itself; it’s a means to development. Without competent and ethical leadership, democracy becomes performance art: colourful, noisy, and hollow.
Local government is where democracy meets daily life. It’s where citizens feel the state, in whether their refuge is collected, whether the streetlights work, and whether their children can go to a school that isn’t flooded every rainy season.
And yet, local governance has become the weakest link in our democratic chain. When a local authority fails, it’s not an abstract political problem; it’s a kitchen-table problem. It’s about whether you can get water, whether your salary is paid, and whether your small business can survive.
Part of the problem lies in how we choose the people who govern us. Recently, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah called on voters to “give her good people” to serve in local authorities. It was an honest plea, but also a revealing one. That appeal should have been made before the campaign rallies, during the internal selection of candidates. The same thing happened when the late President Hage Geingob used to say, “Give me the right people to work with.” Both leaders were right, but they were speaking too late in the process.
Because by the time voters go to the polls, the menu has already been set. The real question is: who decides who gets on the ballot?
Namibia’s political system, like much of Africa’s, is heavily party-centric. In theory, parties are meant to filter competence and promote ideology. In practice, they often reward loyalty and seniority over skill. Internal democracy becomes a popularity contest and job-seeking endeavour and not a search for ability.
Dr Peter Ekeh, in his famous essay Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa, explained this phenomenon decades ago. He wrote that African politics often operate in “two publics”: one civic, where laws and institutions are supposed to matter, and one primordial, where loyalty to party, tribe, or network dominates. That tug-of-war is visible in almost every Namibian town council today.
People are appointed to positions not because they can deliver, but because they belong to the “right camp”. Councils become arenas of political theatre, where motions of no confidence replace actual service delivery.
Francis Fukuyama made a point that applies here: democracy without capable institutions is like “a car without an engine”. Namibia’s democracy is well-built on paper; the Constitution is sound, and the laws are in place, but the engine of competence, especially at the local level, keeps misfiring.
Maybe it’s time we reopen a controversial but necessary conversation. During his time as Secretary of the Swapo Party Youth League, Dr Elijah Ngurare spoke of “guided democracy”. Many dismissed the idea as undemocratic, but perhaps we misunderstood it. Guided democracy, properly interpreted, doesn’t mean dictating outcomes; it means managing inputs. It means guiding the democratic process to ensure that the people put forward to lead are actually capable of leading.
In Namibia’s early years, the Founding President, Sam Nujoma, practised a version of this, although it was not given a name. He handpicked people with technical backgrounds – economists, engineers, and administrators – to build a new state. He surrounded himself with both loyalists and technocrats. That was guided democracy in action: a democracy that knows where it wants to go and chooses its drivers accordingly.
Contrast that with today, where candidate lists are often put together in haste, without serious vetting or training. We end up with councils that struggle to manage budgets, interpret regulations, or run basic infrastructure projects. Then we blame the system, when the real problem lies in who the system allows to govern.
Some will say this call for competence is elitist. But as the late Professor Thandika Mkandawire argued, the developmental state is not about elitism; it’s about building a capable bureaucracy that can implement policy. You can’t deliver services with slogans. You need people who understand budgets, urban planning, procurement, and governance ethics.
When politics becomes a refuge for the unprepared, governance becomes a casualty.
That’s why parties like IPC, LPM, and PDM, for all their differences and internal challenges, are experimenting with a new model: fielding specific candidates for specific tasks, not just whoever wins an internal popularity contest. It’s not perfect, but it’s a step toward intentional governance.
The coming local elections are not just about power; they are about readiness. Are our parties ready to field competent candidates? Are our institutions ready to support them? Are our citizens ready to demand substance over slogans?
Kwame Gyekye, the Ghanaian philosopher, once said that democracy must be anchored not only in systems but also in virtues, integrity, responsibility, and public service. Those virtues have to be cultivated inside political parties, long before they reach government offices.
Thirty-five years into independence, we can no longer excuse incompetence as growing pains. We’ve grown up. Now it’s time to govern like it.
So as we head to the polls, perhaps we should worry less about who wins and more about whether those who win are actually ready to govern. Democracy in itself is not just about gaining and retaining power, but using that power to effect positive change for those who accord you that power.
