Wholesale Changes – In Public Interest?

I HAVE a feeling that I am not the only one surprised by the wholesale changes that we have witnessed on the Swapo Party candidacy lists for the upcoming local authority elections.

Having called for fresh or new blood earlier, I still insist that change is a good thing since it injects new ideas.

However, change not managed properly can be dangerous.

There is a saying that “if you don’t master change, change will master you”.

In this case, Swapo members at grassroots level decided to master change. In so doing, there is a risk of throwing out all experience and reinventing things rather than combining the two.

Clearly Swapo members at local level could not wait for the primaries to make their voices heard, electing candidates they feel will best serve them at that level.

That’s democracy for you. People elect their candidates, whether they are right or wrong. The people have spoken!

For this intervention, I am concentrating only on the local authority elections.

While the Swapo voters wanted change, experience as well as institutional memory was shown the door.

Take, for instance, places like Swakopmund (or ‘Swapomund’ as they call it in Swapo) and Usakos where only one of the current councillors from Swapo are likely to return if elected on November 26 and 27.

At Oshakati, five of the six Swapo candidates will be new as people like the Mayor Katrina Shimbulu and Deputy Mayor Skinny Hilundwa did not make the cut while at Ondangwa, only two of the current councillors stand a chance to return after the local authority election.

That’s a drastic change when you need experience to improve the status of local authorities.

Of course, the question remains whether those who were not nominated for candidacy had in fact contributed positively during their term of office. Some believe they were left out because of party inner squabbles and divisions which are bound to happen prior and during primaries.

Politics, especially in Swapo, is of such kind that during party elections your enemy’s enemy becomes your friend. As a result even people who would normally not be the right candidates for certain positions will sneak in by conspiring with a leading group to oust another obvious candidate of choice.

What one sees with the latest primaries is that even councillors who only entered the fray five years ago have been chopped, just as their feet were about to find ground.

I see the new ones trying to reinvent the wheel.

Of course, some councillors are regarded as having overstayed their welcome.

Windhoek Mayor Matheus Shikongo and long-time chairperson of the management committee Bjorn von Finckenstein are both out.

Some believe it will leave a big vacuum but I believe they had time to groom others to take over from them.

The question is whether they’re out because it was time for change or because they became casualties in a scrum of external players? We know that there were previous attempts to oust them and that they were accused of not attending party public gatherings.

That shouldn’t be the criteria.

Ideally we should have councillors in the mould of those you come across when visiting countries like China. Listening to the mayor you not only get the impression that the person knows what’s going on in the city but you can easily assume them to be senior leaders in that country because of the way they say and do things. They know their stuff.

It is thus important that those who come in will understand their roles.

At some smaller councils, there has been too much interference in management by councillors who are supposed to govern and not run the institutions.

Above everything else, my hope is that the candidates have no attitude of careerism and thus do not only see the councils as a stepping stone to a political career.

Rather they need to see themselves as people ready to serve others for the betterment of living conditions and more efficient service delivery.