Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Namibia: Namibia's Dominant Political Party System - AllAfrica.com

Prof Gerhard TötemeyerWindhoek

1. Coherence and constructive operation of the dominant political party in society. Dominant political parties as beginnings for stableness and predictability

The lawsuit in Namibia

Swapo Party being the dominant political party in Republic Of Namibia seized legitimate political powerfulness and thereby ending colonial regulation on 21 March 2000. It was democratically elected during free and just elections and gained bulk support. SWAPO Party's growing as dominant political party was as follows:

1989: Component Assembly elections 57.3%

1994: National Assembly elections 72.7%

1999: National Assembly elections 76.2%

2004: National Assembly elections 75.8%

From the above it is apparent that SWAPO Party entrenched its political sphere since independence. The political party bids support in all population groups, but its chief support alkali (± 95%) is in the Oshiwambo-speaking population grouping constituting approximately 51% of the sum Namibian population. It originated in the Oshiwambo speech production population.

The changeless addition in support led to the consolidation of SWAPO's political powerfulness and laterality in the political system. As such as it commands the political policy- and decision-making procedure in Namibia. SWAPO's mass support in numerical footing have made it "an electorally dominant party" (Melber: 65). The factual state of affairs is that Republic Of Namibia have go a dominant political party state. Since independence, SWAPO Party have gone through a passage and transmutation process, from a release motion to a political party. It is committed to the rule of a multi-party democracy and therefore to multi-partyism as enshrined in the Constitution.

SWAPO Party is presently opposed in Parliament by some small, mostly ethnical based political parties. The most of import 1 is presently the United States Congress of Democrats (CoD) which was supported by 7.27% of the electorate during the 2004 National Assembly elections. pod is the lone resistance political party that tin claim limited support throughout Namibia.

In general, it can be said that owed to a weak resistance there is no political counterbalance of any relevancy in Namibia. All political political political parties represented in the National Assembly take ideologically spoken a center place in the political spectrum.

Party political programs of those parties represented in the National Assembly make not differ fundamentally from those of the SWAPO Party on most issues. The resistance political political political parties are divided among themselves and from clip to clip split up into littler groups.

The history of political parties in Republic Of Namibia since independency is marked by new formations and decomposition of existing parties. This particularly uses to resistance parties. Breakaways from SWAPO Party but to a very little extent occurred in 1998 when the pod was formed and again in 2007 when the Rally for Democracy and Advancement (RDP) was constituted as a party. The latter's back up cannot be verified yet. The inquiry originates why are the resistance political parties so weak? While the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) was the strongest resistance party/alliance with 20.45 % support during the 1994 National Assembly elections it was only supported by 5.14 % of the electorate during the 2004 National Assembly elections.

Not being able to offer political places and stuff additions as the opinion political party can offer, as well as leader competition and ethnic/tribal differences were the chief causes.

Before independency SWAPO Party considered itself as a socialistic movement, but have since independency moved away from this ideological base. According to its political political party political programme and actions it could be considered as a party with tendencies towards neo-liberalism and societal democracy with some traditionalists supporting democratic socialism and Marxism.

Believing in a amalgamated economy, although hardly practising it, SWAPO Party claims to be the lone political military unit able to drive development based on equity and that tin successfully prosecute national integrating and integrity ("unity in diversity").

Relevant Links

In his computer turn to to the SWAPO Party United States Congress on 27 November 2007, the Namibian President, H. Pohamba, emphasized that the political party have entered the 2nd form of its struggle, namely economical authorization of the Namibian people, led by people who are both politically sharp and economically informed in order to address the urgent demands of the people.

-Reference:

Melber, Hydrogen (2007): "SWAPO is the Nation, and the State is SWAPO" - Government and Resistance in a Dominant Party State. The Lawsuit of Namibia. In: Hulterström, K, Kamete, A.Y., Melber, H: Political Resistance in African Countries. The Cases of Kenya, Namibia, Republic Of Zambia and Zimbabwe, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, pp. 61-81.

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