political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
The FCN was formed in 1988 by a merger of several smaller parties:
* Baster ''Kaptein''
Hans Diergaardt Johannes Gerard Adolph Diergaardt, more commonly known as Hans Diergaardt (16 September 1927 – 13 February 1998) was a Namibian politician active for nearly a decade after Namibia gained independence. Prior to that, he was elected as the fifth Ka ...
Mburumba Kerina
Mburumba Kerina (born William Eric Getzen; 6 June 1932 – 14 June 2021) was a Namibian politician and academic. He was a co-founder of SWAPO, NUDO, and FCN, and the founder of a host of smaller political parties. For independent Namibia, he was ...
'sNUDO Progressive Party (NUDO-PP)
The FCN was led by Diergaardt until his death in 1998. After that, Kephes Conradie took over the leadership of the party. The party contested Namibia's legislative elections from 1989 to 1999.
Electoral results
In the
1989 election
The following elections occurred in the year 1989.
Africa
* 1989 Beninese parliamentary election
* 1989 Botswana general election
* 1989 Equatorial Guinean presidential election
* 1989 People's Republic of the Congo parliamentary election
* 19 ...
, FCN received 10,452 total votes, which allotted it one seat in the Namibian Constituent Assembly. In the former Coloured homeland, the party received twenty-nine percent of the total vote, less than the
Democratic Turnhalle Alliance
The Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), formerly the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA), is an amalgamation of political parties in Namibia, registered as one singular party for representation purposes. In coalition with the United Democratic ...
and SWAPO parties. This result, surprising as Diergaardt was Kaptein of the
Rehoboth Basters
The Basters (also known as Baasters, Rehobothers or Rehoboth Basters) are a Southern African ethnic group descended from white European men and black African women, usually of Khoisan origin, but occasionally also enslaved women from the Cape, ...
at that time, was attributed to Diergaardt's
secession
Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics le ...
plans for the territory around Rehoboth. President Diergaardt took FCN's sole Constituent Assembly seat but soon resigned on health grounds. Kerina took over from him and was elected Deputy Speaker of the house.
In the 1994 Namibian parliamentary election, the party failed to earn a seat and received just 1,166 total votes. In the
Political parties in Namibia
Namibia is a one party dominant state with the South-West Africa People's Organisation in power. Opposition parties are allowed, but are widely considered to have no real chance of gaining power. In Namibian politics, ethnicity plays a signific ...