On 3 December, the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) announced that Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of the ruling South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), won the disputed presidential election held from 27 to 30 November.
It said Nandi-Ndaitwah got 57% of the votes, beating his main rival, Panduleni Itula of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), who got about 26%. Therefore, Nandi-Ndaitwah, a former freedom fighter and now vice president, is on course to make history as Namibia's first female leader.
However, at the moment, his SWAPO party has been disappointed in the parliamentary elections, never holding on to its majority by winning 51 of the 96 seats available. In comparison, the party had secured 63 seats and a comfortable majority in the 2019 elections.
Despite holding on to the presidency, SWAPO, the former independence movement that ruled Namibia since independence from South Africa's apartheid regime in 1990, has clearly lost its election bid. The party achieved its best result in the 2014 election, with 80 percent of the vote and a majority of 77 seats, but has been in decline ever since.
There are many reasons why the people of Namibia seem to be gradually moving away from the movement that won their independence.
Thirty-four years after independence, SWAPO is struggling to deal with a 43 percent poverty rate, high unemployment, and providing basic services such as water and sanitation to long-disadvantaged communities. Although the World Bank ranks Namibia as a middle-income country, at the same time it identifies it as the second most unequal country in the world, according to the Gini index.
Over the years, Namibia has developed a dual economy that has had a negative impact on the social aspirations of the poor and unemployed: an economic structure that includes a highly developed modern sector, and an informal sector that emphasizes subsistence.
This, coupled with the apparent increase in corruption at the government level – which became evident in the $650m Fishrot scandal affecting senior figures within SWAPO – has made many Namibians, especially the poor, young people the hardest hit by high unemployment and lack of upward mobility. , against the ruling party.
SWAPO, once seen by many in Namibia as electorally invincible and synonymous with Namibian nationalism, is now in rapid, possibly irreversible decline.
And in the Southern African region, the Namibian independence movement turned political party is not alone in this problem.
In fact, one independence movement in the region has been ousted from power.
In the October 30 election, the citizens of Botswana sent the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) – the former liberal party that has ruled the country since independence in September 1966 – to the opposition benches. After 58 uninterrupted years in power, this party managed to win only four seats in this year's elections.
The BDP's defeat came after years of poor economic growth and an unemployment rate of 26.7 percent that fueled opposition to the government. The increasing allegations of corruption against BDP's Mokgweetsi Masisi, who was the fifth president of Botswana between 2018-2024, did not help the party's chances in the elections.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority in Parliament for the first time since the end of the white minority rule in April 1994. In the national elections of this year in May, the freedom movement turned into a share of the ruling party's votes and fell to the ground. just over 40 percent, a big drop from the 57 percent they received in 2019. Twenty years ago, in 2004, the party was supported by chaos. 69.9 percent of South African voters.
Similarly to the BDP in Botswana, the ANC's gradual decline is accompanied by its inability to deal with unemployment, poor service delivery, and corruption cases against its senior members. Throughout the 2010s, corruption involving senior ANC leaders undermined the party's long-term credibility and crippled state enterprises, causing losses estimated at $100bn – equivalent to a third of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).
Over the years, millions of voters have distanced themselves from the ANC, as the party has repeatedly failed to ensure ethical governance and address the complex and evolving socio-economic challenges of today's South African society.
In other countries across the region, similar failures have plagued former liberation movements, and are turning to repressive and undemocratic methods to hang on to power.
Take the case of Mozambique.
On October 24, Mozambique's electoral commission announced Daniel Chapo and his ruling party, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), as the winners of the October 9 general election. However, the electoral process was flawed, marked by political assassinations, widespread irregularities and and penal restrictions on the rights of free speech and association.
Frelimo has ruled Mozambique since the country gained independence from Portugal in June 1975, following a 10-year war of independence. However, it failed to meet expectations and retain the support of the Mozambican people after the independence of the country.
Today, only 40 percent of the population has access to grid electricity. Between the years 2014/15 and 2019/20, the national poverty rate increased from 48.4 percent to 62.8 percent, with at least 95 percent of rural households falling into the poverty line. To complicate matters, more than 80 percent of workers work in the informal sector, leaving millions of Mozambicans daily without social security.
Corruption is also widespread among senior members of Frelimo. In 2022, 11 senior government officials, including Armando Ndambi Guebuza, the son of former president Armando Guebuza, were found guilty in connection with a $2bn “hidden debt” case that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in government-guaranteed losses. loan and caused economic collapse in the country.
Because of this, Frelimo does not seem to expect anything from winning the majority it has become accustomed to in recent years in free and fair elections. In that way it keeps trying to cover up its failure in governance with political violence and attacks on the electoral process.
In Tanzania, the ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) won 98% of the seats in local elections on November 27. However, the electoral process was also marked by arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, restrictions on freedom of expression, and extrajudicial killings, including executions. of Ali Mohamed Kibao, a former member of the opposition party Chadema.
In Zimbabwe, the ruling party ZANU-PF, another party that fought for independence, has created a very secure country in order to continue to hold on to power. Since the nation gained independence in April 1980, ZANU-PF has been suppressing dissenting voices and holding fraudulent elections, such as the agreed elections in August 2023, mainly to escape the burden of incompetence.
Meanwhile, in Angola, the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has gone to great lengths to calm dissent and ensure that it wins the August 2022 elections. it did so with the smallest margin of victory ever, which means that a radical political revolution may be imminent.
Times have definitely changed, and it is clear that the former freedom fighters in South Africa are falling short of the ideals of freedom that were thought of during the colonial days.
A liberal state that limits the full expression of fundamental civil rights and does not respect the right to life shows shallow success.
Freedom that does not provide equal and adequate access to basic services, job opportunities and economic empowerment is as demeaning as the old colonial reality.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial position.
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