"Poll will be watershed for Nam", reports the  privately owned Namibian in its Monday edition. Political commentators  say the emergence of CoD has "galvanised" SWAPO into action and raised the level of public interest. More young people have registered, a new political factor promises competition and an issue- oriented campaign has prevailed- ingredients for greater participation, analysts say.

Apathy, a watch-word of electoral officers the past months, has almost certainly vanished from local vocabulary. Increased voter turn-out may have an impact on future public input in the electoral process and elections, commentators now predict.

" I know SWAPO will win" said a 28 year old female office worker who prefers anonymity " but I'am inclined to vote for the new generation. I have grown up hearing SWAPO so I think its time we changed."

The fight infact, is not about dislodging SWAPO, which everyone agrees is favourite; rather for CoD, its about stopping a two thirds majority sweep by the ruling party and supplanting the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) as Official opposition.

CoD accuses SWAPO led by incumbent President Sam Nujoma, of  paying lip service to agricultural and land reform, and promises to introduce-if elected- "an accelerated" drive to " redress" the situation.

But with all the hype, CoD still remains an untested entity. The others have a track record. Possibilities of it dissapointing are not being discounted.

"If they (CoD) do badly, its telling us the time is not ripe for post-colonial opposition...then the loyalty is much stronger than we think", Christian Keudler, a political analyst from the University of Namibia told local journalists here.

SWAPO won 53 of the 72 elective seats in the country's second pluralist elections in 1994, DTA 15, United Democratic Front (UDF) 2, Democratic Coalition of Namibia (DCN) and Monitor Action Group, one each. Six members of parliament are nominated by the President.

The CoD, led by former senior Swapo official Ben Ulenga, has risen from the very ranks of the ruling party taking with it some mid-level liberation war figures. This core of experience is what CoD hopefuls believe will make their day.

"The people who were involved in the formation of the party have had political experience before. A number of them were members of SWAPO, DTA, SWANU and so on. In Namibia right now, anybody who forms a political party is bound to have had a political home before", says Ulenga.

But if CoD's prospects appear bright, those of Namibia's oldest party the South West African National Union (SWANU) are grim. A major realignment of political party profiles is anticpated, with a possible death of SWANU and the smaller opposition parties likely.

SWAPO, in defending its policies, has also explained its government's involvement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)'s war as good neighbourliness.

Swapo waged a brutal war of liberation leading up to independence in 1990, largely from neighbouring countries and sees its intervention as a similar gesture to assist the government of Laurent Desire Kabila fight a foreign invasion. Namibia was virtually a province of Apartheid South Africa which refused to convert its mandate into a UN trusteeship.