Teams Swapo and Harambee resurface

TOIVO NDJEBELAWINDHOEK

Dead on paper but alive and well in the trenches, remnants of the erstwhile Team Swapo and Team Harambee are on a comeback trail.

To camouflage the fact that they have always remained in existence despite their public pronouncements of disbandment, the two teams are likely to re-emerge with new jackets on – or even rebaptised.

With the party teeming with economic opportunists - even by its own admission - it is likely that a few of these ungrounded hoppers might exchange camps and join former adversaries in pursuit of their own parochial fortunes, but the general make-up and DNA of the camps have remained identical. The regional elective conferences held last weekend and the elective congresses of the party’s wings – including that of the Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) currently underway at Ongwediva – are closely watched because they will inevitably throw a spanner in the works at the party’s congress in November.

Silent resurrection

For Team Swapo, which was battered beyond recognition at the 2017 congress, there has been a silent resurrection.

The green shoots of its revival started showing when Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana and Petrina Haingura, both poster girls of Team Swapo, returned to active politics in February when they secured seats in the Swapo Party Women’s Council (SPWC) central committee.

But if that doesn’t carry enough weight, the election of Fransina Kahungu as secretary of SPWC vindicates that view.

Kahungu may not have climbed mountaintops to herald her association with Team Swapo in 2017, but there was little doubt within Team Harambee that she was one of their own.

This school of thought was further confirmed immediately after the 2017 congress when those perceived to be pro-Team Swapo were hounded out of their positions, with Kahungu losing her spot as deputy mayor and becoming an ordinary councillor.

Misfortunes

The resurgence of those who suffered humiliation at the 2017 congress coincided with misfortunes within the Harambee stable.

Perhaps the most obvious one is the refusal so far by President Hage Geingob, the inventor and head of that camp in 2017, to endorse his running mate Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah as heir apparent to the throne of state president.

Second, it is worth noting that in 2017, nearly the entire leadership of the SPYL was comprised of Geingob supporters – who later turned against each other as the cake, for which many joined the powerful camp, began to shrink.

SPYL secretary for economic affairs Marius Sheya, who is the governor of the Kunene Region, was the first obvious casualty of those divisions when the league’s central committee removed him from the national executive committee in December 2021, handing him an unpleasant Christmas present.

This was the swing aimed at clipping the wings of the ‘State House water boys’, a term coined specifically to refer to perceived stooges of Geingob in the youth league.

“He was recalled because he is incompetent, not trustworthy and [because he] has been appointing his associates to the SPYL business companies’ boards. Sheya and Abel Amutse have been pushing the Namibia National Students Organisation [Nanso] agenda within the SPYL,” an SPYL insider said at the time.

This was after Geingob consistently appointed young people such as Patience Masua and Emma Theofelus, both from Nanso, to parliament while overlooking SPYL cadres.

Lame duck

With Geingob no longer in contention for State House at this congress, he has become a lame duck president who no longer commands the influence he possessed in 2017 when everyone scrabbled for his attention. This, too, would be a slap in the face of his erstwhile camp.

As matters stand, the race to replace Geingob at State House pits Nandi-Ndaitwah against Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila.

Lurking in the dust of this two-horse race are male candidates whose ambitions are stuck in a web of the so-called Helmut Amendments and whose dreams will only unravel if these prohibitive rules of contestation miraculously evaporate from the Swapo rule books.

Though outgoing, Geingob’s influence is now the lifeline of his preferred candidate – who has only been discussed with a tiny circle of trusted loyalists behind closed doors.

Those in the know told Namibian Sun that except Hardap and Oshana, all Swapo elective regional conferences have so far gone the Geingob way. Erongo is the only region yet to elect its leaders.

Commenting on the regional conferences election results, a senior party figure yesterday said: “If one puts on the lenses of a political analyst, what is playing out is Team Harambee versus Team Harambee political cannibalism.

“While they wore same jackets at the 2017 congress, the tables have turned so badly in the run-up to the 2022 congress. No one is sure of the outcome.”