How The Local Vote Can Change Things

A YEAR ago people from Asab vowed not to vote in the presidential and national elections because they felt left out with no electricity and water for a village on the main road.

Twenty-four hours after The Namibian published the story, Asab residents were visited by high-ranking Government officials who came to inquire about their needs and less than a month later a newspaper advert was out calling for tenders to electrify the place and surroundings like Gründorn.
Asab now has electricity as well as an information centre while plans are at an advanced stage to set up a service station and a shopping centre.
I believe that following the article, officials actually ‘discovered’ that money had been budgeted for the electrification of Asab and other villages in the Hardap Region and that it was just an oversight that the projects hadn’t been pushed through.
The people from Asab stood up for their rights and it paid off.
Similarly, many communities around Namibia have been demanding certain services since Independence.
Just 30 kilometres north of Asab, some residents of Gibeon still use the unhealthy bucket toilet system. They are not the only ones in that boat because a few years back unhappy Bethanie residents actually emptied their buckets at the doors of the village council!
In recent months we have seen several communities standing up against their elected representatives to demand better services at places like Okahandja, Grootfontein and Otjiwarongo.
But, as in the case of Gibeon, residents of places such as Okahandja have long been complaining about the services without seeing change.
The elections are a powerful tool for such communities to bring about change but their hands are tied.
Electing their representatives directly to town and village councils is probably their only hope for change.
In the beginning Swapo had planned to have only the first two elections with the party representative system while the 2003 local government election was to have been conducted using a ward system.
It means that towns would be divided into wards and for each ward, only one representative would be elected. It is called the winner-takes-all system.
A year before the 2003 local elections, former Deputy Minister of Regional, Local Government and Housing, Gerhard Tötemeyer, tabled the Local Authorities Amendment Bill and introduced the proportional electoral system instead of the ward system.
He argued that while the winner-takes-all system had the advantage of direct representation, it was unfair to minorities.
Others also argued that the proportional system would ensure greater gender representation.
While he and others who motivated the move might be right about that, voting for a party instead of a candidate directly mean that such person’s first allegiance is to the political party they represent on the council.
The end result of such voting system is that it hardly provides a chance for issue-based voting in which rational voters will collect information on each candidate, party or organisation in the race and decide on what she is she believes is the best option to serve the community’s needs.
As it is currently most of our voters do so along the lines of party loyalty, ethnicity or opt for a protest vote.
Most of the United Democratic Front voters in Kunene and Erongo, for instance, are in the ethnic category and use their numerical advantage to out-muscle opposition even though they might not be happy with their services they receive from their councillors.
Others identify with the political party and so only look for the slogan or sign when they enter the voting booth to show their loyalty.
The other group of voters who are not happy with the party or organisation’s representatives will either stay away from polling or go for the best option left.
That is how many voters from Keetmanshoop, who were not happy with Swapo in last year’s election, voted for the Rally of Democracy and Progress. They wanted to give them votes in protest against Swapo.
Similarly, some voters in the Khomas Region tactically opted for RDP instead of, for instance, the DTA or the Republican Party. They wanted to prevent a Swapo majority and thought the best chance for that was to vote RDP.
If Namibia introduces the ward system at local authority level, people will vote for their candidates of choice directly and hold them accountable without such candidates being protected by political parties or other organisations.
If it does not happen, expect the trend of local community associations to re-emerge while independent candidates will also have a go in some towns and villages.
Swapo will probably expel them from the party but that won’t be the solution for long.