EDITORIAL: Swapo’s most important weekend
This is probably Swapo’s most important weekend post-independence. The party, which is on a decline according to official figures, has a policy conference on the cards that must shape its existence for the next five years.
Topics such as the emotive genocide reparation issue, which saw senior government official Mbeuta UaNdjarakana resigning from the party last year, are on the agenda.
Oil discovery and the general state of our economy also feature high on the programme, as well as a discussion on the party’s presidential candidates.
Youth political empowerment, a hot topic since the emergence of the so-called Helmut Amendments, will also be discussed.
Unfortunately for Swapo, policy has not been its biggest Achilles heel. Implementation or lack thereof has been the chronic weakness over which the party’s popularity melted like an ice cube on a hot summer day.
Swapo needs to use this weekend to detoxificate and cleanse itself of the perception that it’s a go-to movement for opportunists seeking to line their pockets through acquisition of power and influence.
Swapo must be an attraction through ideology, like it once was, and not a hub for gangsters wrapped in blue, red and green scarves to camouflage their parochial intentions.
This is a weekend of redemption. A weekend of robust introspection, frank talks and renewal. But if comrades reduce this occasion to another day of singing for their supper through archaic liberation songs, the decline will continue unabated.
Topics such as the emotive genocide reparation issue, which saw senior government official Mbeuta UaNdjarakana resigning from the party last year, are on the agenda.
Oil discovery and the general state of our economy also feature high on the programme, as well as a discussion on the party’s presidential candidates.
Youth political empowerment, a hot topic since the emergence of the so-called Helmut Amendments, will also be discussed.
Unfortunately for Swapo, policy has not been its biggest Achilles heel. Implementation or lack thereof has been the chronic weakness over which the party’s popularity melted like an ice cube on a hot summer day.
Swapo needs to use this weekend to detoxificate and cleanse itself of the perception that it’s a go-to movement for opportunists seeking to line their pockets through acquisition of power and influence.
Swapo must be an attraction through ideology, like it once was, and not a hub for gangsters wrapped in blue, red and green scarves to camouflage their parochial intentions.
This is a weekend of redemption. A weekend of robust introspection, frank talks and renewal. But if comrades reduce this occasion to another day of singing for their supper through archaic liberation songs, the decline will continue unabated.
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Namibian Sun
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