Namibian president Hage Geingob used his recent state visit to South Africa to also address a meeting of the national executive committee of the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC). This underscored the ANC’s historic ties to Namibia’s governing party, South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo).
According to President Cyril Ramaphosa, who also heads the ANC, the party had a “wonderful engagement” with Geingob, who posted on Facebook:
As former liberation movements, we learn from one another, a manifestation of the deep bonds of solidarity formed during our struggle against oppression.
As political scientists and sociologists, we both followed individually and jointly the performance of the two organisations since the days of the liberation struggles. We have continuously analysed and commented on trends in their governance of the countries.
In our view, the nostalgic reminiscences of the parties’ days as liberation movements serve as a heroic patriotic history turned into a form of populism. Such romanticism uses the merits of the past to cover failures in the present. It also is a potential threat to the achievements of constitutionalism.
Geingob’s visit came at a time when both governments under the former liberation movements, Swapo and the ANC, face an erosion of their political legitimacy. With elections in 2024 in both countries, their challenges are similar.
Both face tough choices about how best to handle the challenges when entering the election year. They have, since moving into office, disappointed expectations, not least in their failures to fight corruption. Voters in South Africa and Namibia will in 2024 pass their verdict at the ballot boxes.
How they perform will shape the future of democracy in both countries.
History with lasting bonds
South African-Namibian relations have a special history.
After the first world war, the Treaty of Versailles officially ended the war between Germany and the Allied powers. It turned the German colony South West Africa into a C-mandate of the new League of Nations. Its administration was delegated to South Africa. It effectively annexed the territory and entrenched apartheid.
This led the national liberation movement Swapo to take up arms. Recognised by the UN General Assembly as the “sole and authentic representative of the Namibian people”, Swapo and the ANC, which had likewise launched an armed struggle, became close allies. Both received wide international support.
From liberation movements to governments
Under UN supervised elections in November 1989, Swapo obtained an absolute majority (58%). Independence was proclaimed on 21 March 1990. The date was chosen by the elected Constituent Assembly in recognition of the Sharpeville massacre in 1961 – when apartheid police murdered 69 unarmed black people protesting against being forced to carry identity documents controlling their movement. Released only weeks earlier from prison, Nelson Mandela attended the ceremony as the celebrated guest of honour.
Apartheid in South Africa came officially to an end through the result of the first democratic elections in 1994. Like Swapo, the ANC emerged as the majority party (62.7%). It indicated the success of the democratic settlements in both countries that Swapo and the ANC led processes leading to the drawing up of final constitutions. These embedded accepted democratic principles: free and regular elections, independent judiciaries, bills of fundamental human rights, and the separation of powers of the three branches of government.
Since then, both countries have continued to rank among the top African democracies. Regular elections were largely free and fair. Judiciaries have remained independent and have served as a check on executive power. Both parties initially increased their majorities. Crucially, however, the parliaments dominated by Swapo and the ANC have failed to hold governments to account on major issues.
Popularity in decline
Support for the ANC peaked at nearly 70% in the third democratic election in 2009, but by the 5th election in 2019, it had fallen to 57.5%. Even this was regarded as a triumph, put down to the personal popularity of its latest leader, Cyril Ramaphosa.
In the run-up to the elections in 2024, surveys predict the ANC will lose its absolute majority, and be forced to form a coalition to remain in power. It is also anticipated that it will lose its majority in several provinces. It may even lose Gauteng, the country’s economic hub, and KwaZulu-Natal. It has long lost control of the Western Cape to the opposition Democratic Alliance.
In Namibia, Swapo has fared comparatively better. By 2014, it had consolidated its political dominance into a whopping 80% of votes for the National Assembly, and 86% of votes for its directly elected presidential candidate Hage Geingob. But the National Assembly and presidential elections in 2019 marked a turning point. With 65.5% the party lost its two-third majority.
For both, ANC and Swapo, the loss of control over the regional, provincial and local levels of government has turned politics into a matter of alliances, with shifting coalitions. Politics has become a negotiated commodity.
Principles are regularly traded for power, eroding the trust which citizens place in politicians and democracy. For all that they continue to dominate central government. But, their dominance is being steadily eroded by their lacklustre performance in power and failures in delivery of basic services. State capture has become a form of governance.
2024 and the limits to liberation
It is too early for any reliable predictions regarding the 2024 election results. While many assume that the ANC will lose its absolute majority, it has an uncanny ability to defy expectations. But even if it squeaks home, its credibility is likely to be further damaged. Unless he is shuffled aside by the ANC (a possibility whispered quietly in dark corners as the brightness of his image dims), Ramaphosa is likely to remain in office as South Africa’s president. But he could be compelled to lead a coalition government.
Swapo’s electoral prospects seem less bleak, even though it is thought that the opposition will make gains. Geingob’s two terms as state president ends. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah Swapo’s first female candidate, might become the head of state. But in both countries, those holding office will face an uphill battle.
Numerous analyses have explored how former liberation movements in southern Africa have failed the ideals of the liberation struggle when in power, even becoming undemocratic and increasingly corrupt. They have transited from dominance to decline. In many ways, this was to be expected.
Few parties can retain power for decades without losing their popularity. Yet in southern Africa, liberation movements’ loss of popularity is combined with accusations that they have betrayed the promises of freedom. They have displayed a democratic deficit. By dismissing accountability for the lack of delivery they have squandered their trust and support.
How Swapo and the ANC respond to any further decline will define the future of democracy. Opposition parties are expected to play an increasing role. But the former liberation movements might benefit from their fragmentation and dilemma. After all, opposition parties have so far offered little if any credible alternatives which promise more well-being for the ordinary people.
