Liberation movements attracted more than half of the popular vote in their most recent parliamentary elections in many African countries
This week, Namibians voted for a new president and Parliament in the country’s sixth general election since independence in 1990.Every. Single. One.
But Namibia is no outlier in the region. Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe are all governed by the liberation movement that ushered in their independence, whereas in South Africa the party that helped to end apartheid is still in charge. According to the University of Pretoria’s Henning Melber, whose research focuses on Southern Africa’s liberation movements, their enduring appeal is no accident. Instead, it is a product of a concerted, decades-long effort to conflate the party with the state. “Liberation movements in Southern Africa cultivated a heroic narrative translating into a patriotic history: we liberated you, therefore you owe us,” he says.
And when their power is genuinely under threat, some liberation movements have resorted to alleged electoral fraud to keep themselves in power. This is most notable in Zimbabwe, where successive elections have been marred by credible allegations of electoral fraud and vote-rigging; and recently in Mozambique, where opposition parties and civil society groups have forcefully rejected the results of the October general election.
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