While the Swapo leadership in control since the struggle days approaches the biological expiry date, it still occupies the commanding heights. The founding President, Sam Nujoma, remains active, while his successor, Hifikepunye Pohamba, has not just remained the adjunct. His support to ‘Team Hage’ was unlikely a wish of Nujoma. Geingob was after all the ‘collateral damage’ before President Nujoma abandoned his plans to hang in for more than three terms in office.

The team leader seems not in the best shape and the party internal aversions to the programmed change remain sand in the party machinery until all is set and done. But which ever faction of Swapo will ultimately (re-)gain the upper hand, the differences will at best be gradual in terms of political-ideological principles. The clash of interests is over control of the state through government and hence the entry points to privileges, combined with some regional-ethnic components. Strategies of resource appropriation might slightly differ. But the plunder of the country’s natural wealth largely without benefits for the majority of the people is unlikely to end.

Unknown variables remain: the future land policy and the policy of national reconciliation are at stake. There are temptations to compensate a lack of delivery by blaming others and both commercial farmers as well as the white minority are suitable targets. The founding president already set the example when blaming Koevoet for the failures in governance almost 24 years into independence.

The majority of the electorate will again be denied the opportunity to make choices among their own generations. According to the national census of August 2011, only seven percent of the 2.1 million Namibians were 60 years and older. But despite being the retirement age for public servants, this is the age group, which runs the political show. Namibia remains governed by a gerontocracy. In contrast, more than half of those entitled to vote will be below the age of thirty-five. An Afrobarometer survey of November/December 2012 showed that only half of these were interested in public affairs. A quarter did not care if they lived in a democratic state and some 14% would actually prefer undemocratic forms of governance. Tellingly, religion was more important than politics.

It remains the old guard that owns the revolution and is unwilling to give way to young Turks. Politics remain an affair for old men. Not so, however, the private businesses, where the (relatively) younger generation is able to make inroads and thrive in the shadow of the party dons. They enjoy the privileges of a luxurious lifestyle in the midst of poverty. Their Maserati culture contrasts with the shack-dwellers’ misery. The discrepancies are obscene.

When some protested in demand for jobs, Prime Minister Geingob warned them not to destabilise the country. He linked them to an ominous agenda of dark outside forces seeking regime change. With an unemployment rate far above 50% among the country’s youth it does not, however, need a foreign conspiracy to threaten social stability. But blaming others has always been a convenient (even though short-lived) exit option. Social injustice and inequality, however, will not go away by removing a colonial monument from public space.

Those who demonstrated at Windhoek’s international airport against splashing taxpayers’ money for a trip of some 250 delegates to attend the World Festival of Youth Students in Ecuador were in for a treat by the police with pepper-spray. When it was disclosed that the Tintenpalast should make room for a new parliamentary building the news provoked a demonstration by mainly young people. They felt that there are more urgent priorities requiring public spending than the symbolic insignia of a new elite in political power, which are bordering to architectural megalomania North Korean style.

The country is further away from ‘One Namibia, One Nation’ as well as ‘Unity in Diversity’ than many had hoped for when the Namibian flag was hoisted in 1990 to the tune of the new anthem. The motto of the struggle days, promising ‘Solidarity, Freedom, Justice’, sounds rather hollow when looking at the social realities. A poetic mural on the wall of the old compound in Katutura wondered already then: ‘Now that the Namib sings, and the tear of the Katutura child washes away, who will keep the fire burning?’…

This article appeared in The Namibian on 24 January 2014