Inter Press Service - November 15, 2004
Jatah Kazondu

Almost a million of Namibia's 1.8 million citizens are eligible to vote in the election.

Lands and Resettlement Minister Hifikepunye Pohamba is contesting the presidency on behalf of the ruling South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO), (Namibia was known as South West Africa until 1968, when it was renamed by the United Nations General Assembly). His stiffest competition will come from Ben Ulenga, a former high-ranking SWAPO member who founded the Congress of Democrats (CoD), and Katuutire Kaura of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance.

The two opposition party leaders also contested the previous presidential election in 1999, but lost to SWAPO by a wide margin as Nujoma claimed 76.7 per cent of the total 542,749 votes cast. Ulenga got 10.6 per cent of the vote in this poll, and Kaura 9.7 per cent.

The other political parties taking part in the elections are the National Unity Democratic Organisation, the Monitor Action Group, the Republican Party, the South West Africa National Union (SWANU), Namibia-DMC and the United Democratic Front (UDF). However, SWANU and Namibia-DMC are not contesting the presidency.

As befits a candidate who is widely-held to have been hand-picked by Nujoma as a successor, Pohamba has run a campaign based on continuity of the current SWAPO policies.

"You will agree with me that the challenges before me are to uphold the legacy of Comrade President Sam Nujoma by continuing to maintain the unity, peace, stability and prosperity of the Namibia people," he noted Saturday while addressing a rally in the capital, Windhoek.

"I am more than prepared and committed to meet these challenges. It is no secret that I cherish the ideals and principles of collective leadership within our party and government," Pohamba added.

Nujoma has served as leader of SWAPO for over 40 years, during which he fought against occupation by the apartheid government of South Africa. Reports indicate that he will continue to head the ruling party.

For their part, Kaura and Ulenga have launched scathing attacks on Pohamba, perhaps most notably calling him "an illiterate mistake".

In the midst of this electioneering, several of the more pertinent issues facing the country have received less attention than some voters might have hoped. These issues include Namibia's high HIV-infection rate (currently at 22.5 per cent), unemployment, a lack of housing, income inequalities and gender disparities in positions of power.

Although they account for the majority of voters, women in Namibia are still underrepresented in regional and national government structures.

The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) has registered a total of 512,560 women and 465,382 men for the parliamentary, presidential and regional council elections, bringing the total number of eligible voters to 977,942.

At present, women account for just 7.7 per cent of the National Council, which is made up of two regional councilors from each of the country's 13 administrative regions. In the 1999 Regional Council elections, women won a mere five per cent of the posts.

"The very low representation of women in the Regional Councils sends out the message that regional politics is men's business," says Liz Frank of the Namibian Women's Manifesto Network. "It also denies women access to the National Council. We currently have only two women compared to 24 men in the National Council."

She says that one of the reasons for the low representation of women in Regional Councils is that political parties tend to nominate men as candidates for council posts - this on the grounds hat women are not sufficiently educated to govern regions.

Political analyst Willie Olivier told IPS that the difference in gender representation in the Regional Councils is also due to the use of a "first past the post" voting system for these bodies, which simply requires a candidate to win more votes than his or her rivals in order to gain a seat.

Olivier's views appear to be endorsed by the fact that more women are present in the legislature (known as the National Assembly), which operates under a system of proportional representation. This allows parliamentary seats to be allocated according to the percentage of the national vote that political parties win during the National Assembly elections.

In the last parliamentary vote in 1999, women won 26 percent of seats in the National Assembly. This figure later increased to 29 per cent after certain male legislators resigned and were replaced by women - putting Namibia within reach of having 30 percent of seats in the legislature filled by women by 2005.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has set next year as the deadline for having 30 percent of all decision-making posts in member states occupied by women. Although Namibia has come way to go before reaching this goal with other government departments, it leads the way in SADC as far as female representation in parliament is concerned.

Almost all of the political parties taking part in this week's poll have more than 30 per cent of the names on their party lists taken up by women. In the case of the UDF, this figure is 53.3 per cent - with women filling six of the top 10 positions. SWAPO has a 23 per cent female representation, with only one woman in the top 10 positions.

ECN Chairman Victor Tonchi has told international election observers that few cases of harassment, intimidation and political violence have been reported in the run-up to polling. Reports have emerged of SWAPO supporters intimidating members of the opposition: a fortnight ago, the CoD wrote a letter to the ECN complaining of two incidents of harassment.

"In the first incident, SWAPO members/activists ripped off our posters and tore them to pieces in front of our members in the Ongulumbashe 1 settlement. Our members and supporters have witnessed the incident, noted the particulars of the vehicle used in the act and reported it to my office," noted CoD Secretary-General Kalla Gertze.

The CoD claims that in the second incident, one of its members at Rosh Pinah in southern Namibia received death threats and was constantly harassed by a colleague who supports SWAPO. The ECN acknowledged receipt of the CoD letter last week, and said it regarded the allegations as "very unfortunate."

The election body also issued a stern warning against acts of politically-motivated vandalism, saying these were undermining its efforts to conduct free and fair elections. However, ECN Director Phillemon Kanime did not specify how the body would go about addressing the complaints made by the CoD, or preventing future incidents of harassment from occurring.

The alleged actions of SWAPO supporters notwithstanding, there are fears that this week's poll could be marred by voter apathy - much as was the case during previous elections.

The ECN has expressed hope that a relatively calm campaign will lead to high turnout on Monday and Tuesday. However, certain residents of Windhoek - notably those in the poorer parts of the city - told IPS that they were not going to vote on Monday or any other day because they were tired of seeing candidates who simply wanted to enrich themselves getting elected.

Observers from local non-governmental organisations, SADC, the African Union and the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa will be monitoring the poll.

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