South-West Africa People's Organisation
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The South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) is a political party in Namibia. For electoral purposes, it is referred to as "SWAPO Party".
At the last legislative elections, held on the 15th and the 16th of November in 2004, the party won 75.1% of popular votes and 55 out of 78 seats.
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[edit] History
SWAPO was founded, along with a number of other groups, as a liberation organisation: following the First World War, South-West Africa — formerly a German colony — was turned over to South Africa to rule as a League of Nations mandate territory for the British. The Union of South Africa was a British dominion at the time. The South African government turned this special mandate arrangement into a military occupation, and extended apartheid rule to SWA and governed the territory nearly like a one of its provinces.
[edit] SWAPO as a liberation movement
SWAPO had its base among the Ovambo people of northern Namibia. By the 1960s, SWAPO emerged as the sole liberation organisation for the Namibian people, coopting other groups such as the South West Africa National Union (SWANU). SWAPO was essentially a military organisation, using guerrilla tactics to fight the South African military. It was based in Zambia and then after 1975, in Angola, where SWAPO was allied with their fellow Marxists in the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). South Africa later staged several military campaigns against the Marxist MPLA in Angola from its territory in Namibia.
[edit] Controversy within the movement
It was alleged that SWAPO, during the period of exile, was responsible for human rights abuses against its own cadres. The most serious of these was the detainee issue, which remains a divisive issue. The stories of the detainees begins with a series of successful South African raids that made the SWAPO leadership believe that there were spies in the movement. Hundreds of SWAPO cadres were imprisoned, tortured and interrogated.
[edit] Independence
When Namibia gained its independence in 1990, SWAPO became the dominant political party, with its head, Sam Nujoma, elected as Namibia's first President. Nujoma had the constitution changed so he could run for a third term in 1999, but in 2004 he was replaced as the SWAPO presidential candidate by Hifikepunye Pohamba, described by some as Nujoma's "hand-picked successor". Nujoma will, however, remain president of the SWAPO party until 2007. [1]
