Namibians go to the polls

President Sam Nujoma of Namibia wound up his election campaign with a weekend rally in the capital Windhoek during which he recalled the achievements of his ruling Southwest Africa Peoples Organisation (SWAPO) since he formed the party 36 years ago. According to media reports, over 10,000 people turned out at a sports stadium to listen to Nujoma, 70, who has been in power since independence from South Africa in 1990. He recalled that his government had built seven new hospitals and more than 2,400 classrooms, increasing the number of children in school from 70 to 90 percent, and giving more than 300,000 people better access to water. “I have listed these achievements to prove to you that those politicians who say that the SWAPO government has only channelled development to the northern regions are telling you blatant lies,” Nujoma said in a 90-minute speech. “The SWAPO-Party government is seeking the renewed mandate of the Namibian people in order to further strengthen democracy through the process of decentralisation of our economic planning, accelerate the process of job creation and enhance peace and tranquillity in our country.” News reports said the lively rally contrasted with those held in the capital the day before by SWAPO’s two main rivals, which attracted just a few hundred people, and added weight to Nujoma’s view that he cannot lose the poll. An estimated 850,000 people have registered to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections for a new 72-seat assembly on Tuesday and Wednesday. In the last general elections in 1994, SWAPO won 72.7 percent of the vote and the opposition Democratic Turnhalle Alliance 20.4 percent. Nujoma’s opponents have accused him of using his two thirds majority to change the constitution so that he run for a third term. Critics of the government have also raised Namibia’s military intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), high unemployment and a lack of access to basic services. Seven other parties are contesting the general election, but only the DTA and the newly formed Congress of Democrats (CoD) are expected to make any headway. At a rally on Saturday, CoD leader Ben Ulenga, pledged to withdraw the country’s troops from DRC and draft a new blueprint to fight poverty. Ulenga, 47, a former ranking SWAPO leader and ambassador to Britain, told IRIN earlier that he had quit SWAPO over Nujoma’s DRC intervention and the lifting of the two-term presidential limit. “CoD believes in multi-party democracy,” he told a crowd of several hundred supporters in Windhoek. “We believe SWAPO should be in parliament as the opposition. The current leadership of that party belongs on the retirement bench.” If elected, he said the CoD would also reduce the number of government ministers from 60 to 15 and declare HIV/AIDS a national emergency. Observers told IRIN they expected the CoD to replace the DTA as Namibia’s official opposition.