ruling SWAPO, appears to hamper developments within the media by sitting on reports, policy development and legislation. • Stagnation in the country’s politics and policy decisions may be a result of a schism within SWAPO, broadly comprising one faction led by Pohamba with his deliberately inclusive approach, and the other by more hard-line former president Nujoma, now president of SWAPO. Some critics claim that as a result of this unresolved leadership issue, Nujoma is in fact still running the country, through SWAPO. • The fact that there is still outdated legislation on the statute books and the sluggish process of implementing new legislation. This could be a result of the weakness of the legislature, with the executive dominating the parliamentary process and thus undermining much of the work the legislature should do, such as the repeal of outdated laws and the introduction of policies and bills, for example. • MISA Namibia’s apparent inactivity. Some of the activities needed over the next few year: • MISA Namibia and the Editor’s Forum need to be strengthened and should be much more active. • A media council should be established as a matter of urgency. • MISA Namibia needs to involve civil society more in its activities and lobbying. The Namibian chapter needs to lobby for the creation of an independent broadcasting complaint commission, a “people’s board”. • The media as a whole needs to be more active in informing civil society about issues of media freedom, freedom of expression and human rights in general. • MISA Namibia and other institutions should prepare for intervention when the draft media policy is finally published. • Pressure should be put on the Ministry of Information and NCC commissioners an independent process. • The NNC and the NBC need to be set on an independent course: a broadcasting regulating law and public broadcasting law need to be developed. • The survey of laws that restrict freedom of expression and the media, commissioned by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and done by the FES in 2005, needs to be publicised. • The draft Communication Bill should be revisited and revised by MISA Namibia. • Parliament should be more involved in these debates to give more clout to members of parliament by providing them with more knowledge. • Government needs to update the Hansard and its official websites. So This Is Democracy? 2007 -222- Media Institute of Southern Africa