Nothing in life is forever. Everything changes all the time. Just as the racist National Party in South Africa, or the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico, the Communist Party in the former USSR and many other ruling parties and elites before it, SWAPO Party will not rule forever, even if some of its fervent supporters think so.

Nor does SWAPO Party own the soul of the nation, or the resources of the state, or the country of Namibia itself. Namibia is bigger than SWAPO.

Without doubt SWAPO has achieved much, before and since Independence of our young nation. The party rightly deserves to be praised for that. Without doubt it continues to have an iron grip on the public institutions and the purse strings of our nation.

But equally certain, I think, is that the policial landscape in our Republic will elvolve, and SWAPO will inevitably also have to change and evolve. It may split at some time in the future into two, or three smaller parties. It may lose a national election to a resurgent and unified opposition. It may close its doors altogether and cease to exist as a party. After all this has also happened before to other ruling parties. It may, like ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe, balk and kick at the prospect of losing political power - with unimaginable consequences for the country. Yet whatever happens to SWAPO, Namibia and its people will remain.

Whatever the future holds, one thing is for certain: For our country to be successful our politicians, our leaders - whether from SWAPO or not - will have no choice but to stop looking into the past and glorifying their past achievements at the expense of preparing our nation for the future, and doing something concrete about the many problems facing our people, including HIV/Aids, poverty, unemployment, corruption, crime, education, etc., etc.

Only the future lies ahead of us, and only the future counts in the global open, highly competitive market for investment funds, for the creation of jobs, for the prosperity of our people. So, it seems to be more appropriate to get to work and work even harder than to have discussions about yesterdayl about neo-colinialists, about neo-imperialism. Those disucssions are as nebulous as they are empty. They don't fill stomachs, and they don't create jobs.

And by the way: If the people of Namibia decide at the ballot box that SWAPO Party is not good enough, THEN SO BE IT!!! We are, after all, a democracy where the political battles are fought at the BALLOT BOX.

Many a true word ..........

Well, well we will see. There are so many irresponsible things coming out of the fuming mouths of some SWAPO Youth leaders. Makes you think they are ready to go take up arms again and go to the bush to wage another war. You can easily discount that as mere bellicosity and cheap political talk, but it makes me shudder to think that some of the guys have leadership aspirations and see themsleves as future leaders of our nation. Their political posturing and aggressive talk - lashing out at the media, foreigners, unpatriotic elements and the list goes on - is entirely misdirected and outright destructive for the future our nation. They seem to think they somehow own the state, and the nation; that they have a birth-right to the spoils of political office and the State. Seems to me their leadership credentials are as good as their talk. It is time these youngsters are called to order and to show some maturity otherwise the future looks bleak indeed.

Comrades and Compatriots!

Are we not back to square one with all the talk? Last week still all and sundry vehemently denied that SWAPO would ever split. Tjiriange (SWAPO S-G) said in "Insight" that there would never be a split and that they were all unanimous in their doings.

Well, somebody must having fibbing his or her heart off, because, meanwhile back at the ranch, mathematical genius and Director of Election, Philemon Kanime announced for Monday's papers that a new party was not only on the cards, but had been registered: "Rally for Democracy and Progress". Taking into account that the Elections Directorate are busy bees, and are really working a full eight hours a day, it still means that the application for the registration of the new party must have reached ECN by the latest in late Sept/early October!

And don't tell me Tjiriange did not know about this!

So, where is the veracity and credibility of our leaders today? So, now we have another party to split the votes and, I believe, this one will have more effect than the damp squid the COD turned out to be in 1999 when they only took votes off that dying horse, the DTA.

Where does it leave us? Well, nearly exactly two years before the next election it leaves us with a original SWAPO party going into "laager"and consolidating all it can ... and it can!

The crumbs are left for the others!

Aluta continua; victoria is more certain than ever!!

An addition:

Reliable information is that there are only TWO names on the application of the RDP to the ECN: that of Jesaya Nyamu and a certain Bezuidenhout .........

Surely SWAPO may not lead for life but the achivements that has been attained during it is leadership will be appreaciated. On the new part, on my side I cannot see it immediate success because it is just SWAPO split again as was done with COD, and most SWAPO supporters a specially in the north ( and it is where majorities stay) never accept those kind of changes immediately. Therefore, I can say SWAPO may still win the next election although withought get the two-third majorities.

The ball is in the court now let see who will score. However, it is democratic right for people to form up and join parties of their choice.

LET DEMOCRACY PLAVAIL IN NAMIBIA!!!

Very good points, Tuhafeni. I think it would be good for our country and for democracy if SWAPO did not achieve another two-thirds majority, becuase I believe that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. THe current bunch of public leaders are hardly being held accountable in a rigorous fashion. They are hardly being questioned, and feel too confortable in office. That ain't good.

Time will tell. The real challenge will be to unite all the opposition parties on a platform of principles/values/policies that would pose a serious democratic challenge to SWAPO's rule. You are right that another party like RDP will split the votes yet agian. But I suppose that may be part of a longer period of consolidation on the part of opposition politics in our Republic.

Current Namibians at the helm of leadership are all greedy people who fail to effect positive change, that goes for all the political parties, who are given that power through peoples votes they fail to represent, why else is the poor getting poorer? this countries resources are in abundance, we should not have a single poor soul on our grounds, we are a handful people. If countries like united arab emirates can reduce poverty in the way they did, then by all means we should copy them. Public service sucks, look at the standards of hospitals, the growing number of street kids and shanty town inhabitants, i will give no single credit to all of those so called heroes, who cost us our hard earn ancestral land's spoils, just to keep them in their places, my heroes were the people of Namibia, who build up this country, it's infrastructure and agricultural gains, through hard sweat while being beaten and abused by the former apartheid regime, not these guys, who went out there, return as heroes and grab everything for themselves,only difference, they now don have to grab anything, they simply sit down, design laws and policies which can enrich them, implement them without much input from the people who empowered then in the first place and do their daylight robbery through being the 'legitamate' representatives of the Namibian people. We always claim there is no money in this country, but there is, it just is not used optimally and constantly end up in individuals pockets. I challenge any Namibian leader today, take 50 % of your assets/income (u know u get more than yo fair share) and benefit the poor of this country, then you will earn my respect, or at least make water accessable, you all know no human being can live without it and maybe make education free, not only on paper and cheap lip service, but make it a reality, concretize it!
Further, when organizations and countries want to take corrective measures, like the gramans, don't give the money to the greedy government, instead, setup an agency who has direct access to the effected communities and BENEFIT them!!!!

What happend to the joy my parents felt on the 21`Match 1990,when they cried tears of joy, tears which recembeld their joy of independence,i didnt understand what the tears meant and what the commotion was about but now i know,,,,,,

they finally got what they wanted,they got the freedom they deserved and part of the package was that they finaly got to choose their own leaders`they after a long struggle had a say and be heard, never to know that through the years the "democracy" would start fading away,,,,wow! what happend to "our" leaders and are there any future leaders?,,,or is this just a "I`m gon get out and form my own <democracy>"or "I want him in my party and him i dont want !"

I MIGHT BE A BIT FAR FROM THE RAILINGS but pls the big Struggle for POWER has to stop!

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[b]TRE[/B