Trust in opposition parties

Who could blame anyone for not noticing that there is an election on the way? Where are the pyrotechnics, the campaigns, the manifestos and rallies?We have a serious case of political fatigue; a political impasse from which no one seems to know the way out. Have we stopped caring, or run out of ideas, or are we low on resources? Although Namibians have grown in their support for the notion of multiparty democracy, they do not seem convinced that the current opposition offers much value. Figure 1 shows that it is not only a matter of trust. Trust in opposition parties is on the low side, but not yet at dire levels. However, it declined significantly from 47% in 2014 to 34% in 2017. Bad news.It is not a lack of political space; 57% of Namibians feel the opposition has enough freedom to operate and just 10% feel opposition candidates are prevented from contesting elections. Figure 2 shows that trust in opposition parties is a rather poor predictor of feelings of closeness. Does this mean that the notion of opposition has more appeal than the actual opposition parties themselves? Quo vadis, Namibia?* All survey data used is sourced from the Afrobarometer, a pan-African series of national public attitude surveys on democracy, governance and society. For more details please visit http://afrobarometer.org

Trust in opposition parties

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-14

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Trust in opposition parties

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-14

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