Daniel Sampayo

IT isdisturbing that our country, with a  population of three million people has over 20 political parties. It is interesting that year after year, many political parties surface, yet no improvement in the lives of ordinary people or development has taken place. It is understandable that we live in a democratic country, but creating too many political parties would not bring development.  Too many political parties only divide the country’s citizens more. 

For instance, we have been fighting tribalism for over three decades, to no a
vail. Many political parties only exacerbate tribalism, because we create political parties which are, at some level, affiliated or aligned to specific ethnic groups as sympathisers or supporters.

There are so many ideas – which are of course confusing at best  - spoken by politicians.  There are many speeches and debates among political parties that never seen to have a resolution. Many parties confuse Namibian citizens as to who to listen to, and whom within the parties will be responsible for what happens when things go wrong. Many political parties create an arena of conflict, division of people and blame.  There is a saying that: “When elephants fight, small animals get trampled.” While many politicians debate, give empty promises and
scramble for leadership positions, the citizens of Namibia get confused, and
don’t know who to follow and listen to. 

One may ask: Are we creating political parties to solve socio-economic problems, or are we creating political parties to gain power and control? Or perhaps, are we creating political parties to entertain ourselves? Because, while we have 21 political parties, the country is going from bad to worse politically, economically and socially. So, what is the point of having many political parties if we have utterly failed to solve socio-economic issues of such a small population? We need to understand that it is not about quantity,
but quality. The United States of America with a population of over 340 million has only two parties, China with a population of 1.4 billion has less than eight political parties, and India with a population of 1.4 billion as well has six political parties.
What do we conclude from these statistics? There is no doubt that politicians are scrambling for power rather than solve the country’s problems.  It is time we narrowed down our parties so that we can be united and focus on solving problems rather than debating problems for the sake of debating. The current state of our politics is chaotic. Many politicians have mismanaged, laundered, carry out fraudulent activities and poorly performed in their
authoritative positions, but few of them have faced consequences for such
actions. Too many political parties, and politicians fighting for leadership positons shows that few of the politicians are interested in improving the state of the country. But they are just focused on taking control of the power steering wheel. 

I would like to conclude by saying it is only when we are united that we can hold those in leadership positions accountable. So let us join hands to untie and create fewer political parties and focus on the bigger picture rather than the power struggle. 

*Daniel Sampayo is a freelance teacher and writer.