Will Namibia vote with its stomach?
Nicholas Ashford
Johannesburg Whatever else may be said about Namibia/South West Africa's first all-race elections which were taking place throughout this week, they were certainly concerned with bread and butter issues. For many of the tenitory's 400,000-odd registered voters the main question was not so much which of the five right-wing parties taking part in the constituent assembly elections offered the most pertinent political programme as which of them served the best food at party rallies. In the `Boerewors' stakes, the multiethnic democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) emerged an easy winner as it is also expected to when all the votes have been counted in about ,a week's time. The DTA has pioneered the concept of the political 'braaivleis' or barbecue. At the end of each of the DTA's big rallies free eats were offered to all those who had sufficient stamina to sit through two hours of Mr Dirk Mudge, the DTA's chairman, explaining the finer points of the alliance's three-tier constitutional proposals or a renewed lambasting of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) by the DTA president, Pastor Cornelius Ndjoba. Many hundreds of kilos of steak and sausages have been consumed during the past few months by potential DTA converts, so much so that other political parties found it necessary to emulate the DTA's example. And who can blame them, for they soon realised that empty stomachs are of more immediate political relevance to many Namibians than party ideology. Last week however the territory's South African-appointed administrator-general, Mr Justice Marthinus Steyn, finally blew a whistle on the whole free food business by issuing a proclamation prohibiting parties from providing refreshment at polling booths. It was Marie Antoinette in reverse. But free food was only one of many gimmicks which the lavishly funded DTA employed to sway Namibians to its side. Others included the sale of DTA t-shirts, ties, brief cases, hats, sun visors, shawls, pendants, matches, sticker and suckers all of them emblazoned with the DTA's Churchillian two-finger `V-sign' symbol. The alliance has also spent huge amounts of money (estimated at about sterling 250,000 a month emanating, it is believed, mainly from South Africa and West Germany) on other election artefacts such as its own television system, 'eine cars' equipped with screens, projectors and films, and 132 vehicles for penetrating the remoter parts of this exceedingly large territory, not to mention the 36 party offices, 425 trained field workers and 21 armed security guards. It has also invested in a small armoury of rale: and pistols because, it is pointed out, the DTA's first president, Chief Clemens Kapuuo, and five other DTA leaders have been murdered. The DTA's preoccupation with electoral paraphernalia has tended to deflect attention away from the alliance's election al? paign which consisted largely of attacks against SWAPO (even though SWAPO is, boycotting the elections) and agaills` AKTUR, the only other party of any onsequence in the pool. It is one of the ironies of the present political situation in Namibia that the black nationalists in SWAPO have increasingly found themselves malcill common cause with the white nationalists -d AKTUR (which has inherited the aparthelu ideology of its forerunner, the South Afri; can National Party, under another narnei against the DTA. The DTA's dislike of SWAPO is PartlY inherited from South Africa whose erstci while prime minister, Mr John Vorster,113, an almost obsessional hatred of SWAP°,5 president, Mr Sam Nujoma. SWAPO Is portrayed not only as being a Marx,isnt' indoctrinated, Cuban-infiltrated, Ritss't dominated front but also the party of 1,1'; anti-Christ — even though SWAPO has tacit support of six of the territory's biggAt churches. 'The fight', declared Mr MU recently, 'is between two idedogies • communism and athesim on one hand allit christianity and democracy on the other.'e is simply a fight between Christ and th Devil.' A more deep-seated reason for the, DTA's antipathy towards SWAPO IS hat Mr Mudge and his black and brown e9e; leagues know that however big a main they may win in this week's elections, will still have to confront swApo in ft final struggle for power in the territorY. It le SWAPO's guerrillas who are fighting snlhA 20,000 South African troops deploYeou along Namibia's northern border. SWAP s has the backing of the United Nations ja) well as having a large (but so far unprovehe t amount of support within the count)'. proposed UN-supervised elections are d take place next year, with SWAPO ti/d other parties taking part, the DTA e°,t1to find that it required more than free fonars. retain the loyalty of its present supPorte The DTA's dislike of AKTUR is latge.) based on the fear that AKTUR will ,%.v.ite most of the votes of Namibia's 80,000 vill;re inhabitants. The majority of whites the Afrikaners who have little sympathy fc'r limited form of multi-racialism bel:t. preached by Mr Mudge, himself a form' member of the National Party. An AKTUR victoryamon only g whites would not undermine his own personal position but would limit the scope for action a DTAdominated constituent assembly otherwise enjoy. would Many people inside and outside Namibia have already rejected this week's election as little more than a comic farce, a charade laid on by South Africa in an attempt to boost the DTA and give one in the eye to be How, it is asked, can the election ue said in any way to reflect the view of the majority of the inhabitants, when it is being boycotted not only by SWAPO but the exceedingly moderate Namibian National Front as well as that suave SWAPO renegade, Mr Andreas Shipanga? Surely the churches, the five western powers and the UN, all of whom have rejected the validity of this election, cannot all be wrong? Perhaps not, but it would be wrong to Write off this week's poll as insignificant. It will, in fact, be of the utmost importance in d. etermining South Africa's future strategy in the present international negotiations over the future of the territory. For Pretoria, the main issue at stake this week s the size of the turnout. What the South Africans want is to see more than 50 per cent of the registered voters defy SWAPO and turn out to vote. And as 93 per cent of the adult Population were prevailed upon to register as voters, despite SWAPO opposition, there whould be little problem in achieving a good showing this week. The high registration figure has inevit ably brought accusations of foul play from have and other opposition groups who nave complained of coercion, intimidation and other malpractices. Last week Mr Justin Ellis, the acting director of the Christian Centre in Windhoek, was given three days 1.° leave the territory after publishing a fifteen page document listing alleged incidents in which the army or other government institutions forced people to register as voters. Assuming there is a turn-out of more thin '.'„u Per cent and most people vote for the ", , the South Africans will then have to aecide between what can be described as their 'international' and 'internal' options. IC:111 the basis of what South African leaders h_ ave been saying in public they ought to go tor the former — which means agreeing to UN-supervised elections some time next Year. Mr Pieter Botha, the prime minister, did after all give the five western powers an ,..assurance during their summit talks in Pretoria last October that he would try to Persuade the body elected this week of the i Mportance of an internationally acceptable solution. And only last week, l's4r otha, the foreign minister, was busily cSSouth all and sundry in New York that .outh Africa was committed to the prinMe of UN-supervised elections next year. k However, some very different noises have recently been emanating from Windhoek, notably from Mr Justice Steyn who these days makes very little attempt to disguise his pro-DTA sympathies. In an interview with Die Transvaler he stated that the new constituent assembly would not only be able to decide on the acceptability of the UN settlement plan, which embodies UN-supervised elections. He also said that a party obtaining an absolute majority in the assembly would be able to decide whether independence from South Africa should be asked for immediately. The DTA leaders are also already developing idees de grandeur. One of them said the other day that the DTA was determined it was going to govern the country after the election. 'What matters in Africa today is power,' he said, adding, 'he who holds power will rule', — a claim that is hard to dispute, particularly if power is backed by the might of the South African army.
Dr Owen, the foreign secretary, said last week that the situation in Namibia was 'the watershed of South Africa's relationship with the world.' He is right, for if South Africa does go ahead with the 'internal' option, in one form or another, it would almost certainly lead to the imposition of United Nations sanctions. It would also mean that South Africa would have committed itself to an escalating war against SWAPO guerrillas — a war which has already spilt over Namibia's borders into neighbouring Angola and Zambia. Namibia and Southern Africa as a whole would then be confronted with the sort of slow strangulation which is now threatening Rhodesia.
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