Good News From Namibia

While it will get virtually no press in the West, it is worth pointing out that an election is taking place in Namibia. (See also here.) Polls were open yesterday and today to determine who will become the next President of the country formerly known as South-West Africa.

Since Namibia gained its independence in 1990 (It was freed from South African mandate on March 21 1990, a date that portentously is the anniversary of the 1960 Sharpeville and 1985 Langa massacres, as a result of F.W. de Klerk’s series of reforms that year), Sam Nujoma of the South West Africa People’s Organization (Swapo) has been the country’s only head of state. For a while at the turn of the century it appeared that Nujoma might follow the only too-well-trodden path of other post-independence African leaders when there were hints coming out of Windhoek that he might desire to change the Namibian Constitution to extend his stay in office. Wisely (and with more than a little prodding from the outside, most notably from Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki) Nujoma decided to step down.

The badly fractured opposition is unlikely to make much of an inroads in the election, which is sure to choose Swapo party stalwart Hifikepunye Pohamba to take Nujoma’s place. This is all very good news. Perhaps stability can spread across Africa from the South. Despite the nightmares from Zimbabwe and the instability across the continent, South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia offer on balance a respite from the grim tidings we so often hear from the rest of the continent.