SANF 04 no 106
Three national elections in southern Africa during the last quarter of 2004 had at their core the key issues of land redistribution and gender representation, as well as the transition of political leadership.
Some of these issues were resolved, others not. The transitional issues were prominent in all three countries going to the polls, Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique.
President Joaquim Chissano is standing down after 18 years in power in Mozambique, where voters go to the polls on 1-2 December. The contestants for the presidency include the two men who negotiated the Rome peace agreement signed in 1992, Armando Guebuza and Raul Domingos, as well as Chissano’s protagonist in the apartheid-backed civil war, Afonso Dhlakama.
Guebuza is the candidate of the ruling party, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), which won independence from Portugal in 1975. Domingos split from Dhlakama’s party, the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo), following the last elections in 1999. He formed his own party, the Party for Peace and Democracy (PDD).
Under the national constitution, land belongs to the state in Mozambique, but recent events have generated questions over how land and leases are allocated, particularly to foreign tour operators wishing to develop the country’s lengthy coastline of clear waters and pristine beaches.
In Botswana, the incumbent Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) easily won the elections at the end of October with 44 of the 57 seats in parliament, and their candidate, Festus Mogae, resumed the presidency. However, the question of who will succeed Mogae when he steps down in 2008, simmered during the campaign.
This was the first post-election issue to be dealt with by party and parliament, with the endorsement of Ian Khama Seretse Khama, the party vice-president, as Vice-President of the country. Khama is the eldest son of the first President of Botswana, Seretse Khama, and a former commander of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF).
Another issue simmering behind the ballot box was that of the relocation of the Basarwa people from their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to the town of New Xade, which is currently being contested in the courts.
Land was also a hot issue in the peri-urban villages around the capital, Gaborone, which continued to largely support opposition candidates.
Namibian voters went to the polls on 15 and 16 November, and returned the ruling party, the South West Africa Peoples Organization (Swapo), to power 14 years after the end of a protracted armed struggle for independence.
The leadership transition in Namibia is from President Sam Nujoma, who led the country to independence in 1990 and will retire from government in March 2005. His successor is Hifikepunye Pohamba, the current Minister of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, who was Swapo’s presidential candidate in the recent elections.
Swapo got 76 percent of the votes cast, equalling its 1999 share of votes and resulting in 55 of the 72 seats in the National Assembly under the proportional representation system, thus retaining its two-third majority,
Swapo sees land reform as the key to national development and poverty reduction, ensuring stability, both politically and economically.
Pohamba, in his current portfolio, initiated the acquisition of derelict land for distribution to the majority of landless citizens. He also prepared plans to tackle the broader issue of sharing the limited arable land, largely still in the hands of white farmers (SARDC)
