EDITORIAL: Watch out for political mercenaries

Last night on The Agenda, former Cabinet minister Helmut Angula fiercely defended the 2018 amendments to the Swapo constitution requiring those aspiring to the party’s highest office to have served on the central committee for a specified period.

Listening to Angula, one could understand what the architects of those amendments were trying to guard against.

They may have smelled from afar the growing opportunism that has come to characterise Namibian politics – not only within Swapo, but across the political spectrum.

Before independence, people joined Swapo because they believed in something bigger than themselves. They believed in the party’s ideology, its pursuit of independence and the vision of a free Namibia. Many also subscribed to the socialist orientation that the liberation movement espoused at the time.

Fast-forward to today and the picture is considerably different. Some people join political parties not because they have read the constitution, studied the manifesto or deeply embraced the ideology, but because they see politics as a pathway to economic advancement.

They join today and start calculating tomorrow's rewards. The motives are increasingly transactional.

Swapo, in particular, should be wary of these political mercenaries, whose allegiance is strong only for as long as their ambitions are being accommodated. When they fail to secure the bag, they simply pack their bags and look for the next political home offering a better opportunity.

There is nothing inherently wrong with changing political allegiance. People can change their minds, ideologies and political convictions. Democracy allows for that. But genuine political conviction should not depend on whether one has been handed a position.

The temptation is understandable. Political parties want numbers. But a party that indiscriminately recruits people because they are electorally useful today may discover tomorrow that it has imported individuals whose commitment extends only as far as their personal ambitions.