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.



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