The Management of a Dominant Political Party system with particular reference to Namibia

The Management of a Dominant Political Party system with particular reference to Namibia

Since independence SWAPO Party has gone through a transition and transformation process, from a liberation movement to a political party. It is committed to the principle of a multi-party democracy and therefore to multi-partyism as enshrined in the Constitution. SWAPO Party is presently opposed in Parliament by some small, mostly ethnic based political parties. The most important one is presently the Congress of Democrats (COD) which was supported by 7.27% of the electorate during the 2004 National Assembly elections. COD is the only opposition party that can claim limited support throughout Namibia. In general, it can be said that due to a weak opposition there is no political counterweight of any relevance in Namibia. All political parties represented in the National Assembly take ideologically spoken a middle position in the political spectrum. Party political programmes of those parties represented in the National Assembly do not differ fundamentally from those of the SWAPO Party on most issues. The opposition parties are divided among themselves and from time to time split up into smaller groups.

Gerhard Tötemeyer

http://www.fesnam.org/pdf/2007/reports_publications/Toetemeyer_DominantPoliticalPartySystem_Namibia2007.pdf

Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and FRELlMO

2007

© Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Gerhard Tötemeyer, 2007

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