The voting intelligence of the oppressed
By Shivute Kaapanda [Think Tank Africa]
At the time of writing I was in Outapi town of Omusati region, observing how the masses of Namibian people are mobilised by different political party leaders in efforts to buy their favors in the upcoming local and regional council elections.
After a brief analysis of the situation on the ground it’s very safe to conclude that the voting intelligence of the poor is at stake.
In Namibia the hype and political atmosphere has generally reached high heights characterised by a much friendly tone despite few incidents of negative political hygiene from the ruling elites and the para-military wings including the politicians in military and police uniforms who out of their ignorance and lack of political hygiene incite political violence upon society.
In Namibia it only appears to the much logical and rational to say the forces are generally perceived to be apolitical while the generals and former generals were and are politically appointed.
Be that as it may, in the face of the unthinking the force fraternity is not captured by politicians; same applies to the judiciary whereby it happens that the judiciary is independent while it’s public knowledge that the judges and the chief justice are political appointees, the independence of both the forces and the justice system is only independent in the eyes of the politicians in their demonic rhetoric.
The electorates are therefore left wallowing in the pool of confusion, becoming only recognized during the election campaigns and forgotten thereafter.
The voting intelligence of the voting poor is therefore very important in understanding the political dynamics both pre and post-elections.
The oppressed are mostly the downtrodden masses, the poor majority in the villages and informal settlements. The oppressed are not the rich and elites living in posh areas of Ludwigsdorf or Cibembasia; they are the poor people living in shacks and in villages where electricity is only freely distributed around cuca shops but absent in homes.
The oppressed are the people living under the bridges, those using the bucket system in the ghettoes to answer to nature, the farmworkers who are exploited by white people on a daily basis, security guards, civil servants, petrol attendants and domestic workers who don’t own the means of production but those who rather sell their labor to make living and face all the hardships of poverty that the few black elites together with the whites only see it on television and pretend to care for.
Like the biblical Moses theory of “The promised land”, corrupt politicians find entertainment in playing with the minds of the oppressed poor by promising them what they need in exchange of votes.
And this brings the poor to the conclusion that if they vote for the corrupt elite politicians they will get what they are being promised and therefore reaching the “promised land,” the land of milk and honey projected during the political campaigns by political party leaders in party colours. By the way who eats party colours?
In this case the voting intelligence of the oppressed is at stake, leading to the situation whereby the poor have to vote for the corrupt politicians into office again and again thinking every time they vote politicians into office who will be honest, which has never been a case since independence.
In the final analysis, the political rhetoric and the use of figurative language as often used by the ruling class to undermine the voting intelligence of the poor masses and therefore in dealing with this horrible situation caused by annoying politicians comes a time whereby having a strong faith in political parties should not surpass our logic, voting intelligence and political education.
Come 25 November 2020 let us go out there and vote with our open minds and not with our stomachs.
