Six representatives from Namibia’s main opposition bloc defected to a breakaway faction of a tribal party over the weekend in what is seen as a major blow for the grouping ahead of elections later this year, press reports said on Monday.
The defection is expected to benefit the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) of President Sam Nujoma in the vote, the date of which has yet to be announced.
Two members from the upper house of parliament and four regional councillors on Sunday quit the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) to join a breakaway faction of the National Unity Democratic Organisation, representing the ethnic Herero people.
The defectors were led by Mburumba Kerina, one of the earliest petitioners for the freedom of South West Africa at the United Nations and the creator of the country’s new name, derived from the Namib desert.
Kerina dismissed rumours that the breakaway faction was dividing the Herero — which account for about seven percent of Namibia’s population of 1,8-million — and playing into the hands of Swapo.
”Another political group, the Republican Party, also broke away from the DTA in mid 2003,” he said.
”The DTA always irritated me, having no proper direction and taking ad hoc decisions. Namibians need a new vision, a new approach to politics.”
Political analysts say the defections also reveal the decline of the DTA, which draws support from both whites and some tribal groups but which has been tainted by its association with the South African apartheid regime which administered Namibia till
independence in 1990.
South Africa occupied the former German colony during World War I.
The DTA won 21 seats in the country’s first democratic elections in 1989. It got 15 seats in the 1994 polls but that number further fell to just seven in 1999.
The defections could also indicate that many ethnic groups are losing confidence in the DTA as an effective counterweight to the ruling party, which is closely identified with the Ovambo, the country’s dominant tribe.
Nujoma’s term of office expires at the end of this year but a group of traditional leaders have been campaigning for him to remain in office.
The constitution has already been amended once to allow Nujoma to stand for a third term after the 1999 elections, although future presidents will be allowed to serve two terms only.
Nujoma has been president of Namibia since independence. – Sapa-AFP