THE RULING FORMER NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENTS IN ZIMBABWE, NAMIBIA AND SOUTH AFRICA AND CHALLENGES OF NATIONAL RECONCILIATION, BROAD PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY AND GOOD GOVERNANCE Ndali — Che Kamati The concept of national reconciliation became policy strategies in political discourse in Zimbabwe and Namibia after independence and South Africa after democratisation. <...> Political processes and developments in these three countries also reveal that settlement compromises made at independence and new democratic dispensation predicated on liberal constitutions followed by neoliberal economic policies are sources of enormous governance challenges facing the leadership of these countries today. <...> Key words: Challenges of National Reconciliation, Participatory Democracy and Good Governance. <...> When Zimbabwe and Namibia got independence and a new democratic dispensation achieved in South Africa, these countries inherited systems of acute inequality. <...> This is extremely challenging and a mammoth task for the leadership of national liberation movements [NLMs] just emerging from the situation of liberation war to redress and change such inhumane systems of institutionalised violation of basic human rights and freedoms. <...> This is because the apartheid colonial regimes in especially Namibia and South Africa deliberately institutionalised a bantustan system of divide and rule where by different races, ethnic groups and tribes were forcefully separated and lived apart with differently graded social, economic, educational and cultural benefits. <...> The philosophy of racial segregation and separate development of these apartheid colonial regimes had the main objective to sow and breed hatred amongst racial and ethnic groups. <...> The Namibian Prime Minister and Vice-President of SWAPO Hage Geingob [currently nominated also to run for presidency of Namibia in November 2014] argued that ‘when SWAPO decided to promote reconciliation, its primary objective was to lay the ground work for peace and harmony in a country that was ravaged by long years of war. <...> The Ruling Former National Liberation Movements in Zimbabwe, Namibia. as the South West Africa Police [SWAPOL]’s Counter Insurgency Unit [SWAPOLCOIN], and the other a fighter for freedom and independence with SWAPO. <...> To succeed in healing wounds, and to create a stable atmosphere for unity, stability and socio-economic development, such a situation required a meaningful reconciliatory approach after independence and majority rule was achieved. <...> President Robert Mugabe and the ruling Zimbabwe African <...>