Let’s back Netumbo without violating constitution - Pendukeni

Former Swapo secretary-general Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana said the party must firmly back the central committee’s stance for Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah to be the sole candidate for the party president position, but hastened to add that pushing the extraordinary congress to 2025 is unconstitutional.

During a central committee meeting last Saturday, Iivula-Ithana moved that Nandi-Ndaitwah should be the only candidate for Swapo’s top spot – a stance first made at a politburo meeting a week earlier, and which enjoyed strong backing from the party’s founding president Sam Nujoma.

Banning contestation against Nandi-Ndaitwah is supposedly meant to avoid divisive contestation in the party ahead of the 2024 general elections, but the constitutionality of this move has been questioned.

The succession race in Swapo was stirred by the death of party president Hage Geingob on 4 February.

Article 15 (9) of the party’s constitution requires that, under these circumstances, the central committee – the highest decision-making body between congresses – must call an elective extraordinary congress within three months.

However, the central committee decided that the extraordinary congress will only take place in April 2025, a decision Iivula-Ithana deems unconstitutional.

Glorious opportunity

“We had the perfect opportunity to do things right, since there is no contestation against Comrade Netumbo. Once that hurdle was cleared, we should have gone ahead and legitimised our collective position by convening the extraordinary congress within the time frame stipulated by the Swapo constitution.”

She added: “The problem with ignoring constitutional requirements – and hiding behind deliberate wrong interpretations – is that it paints Swapo negatively in the eyes of our members and the general public, who must have confidence in our party ahead of the 2024 elections”.

“I want to make it clear: The party must ensure that Comrade Netumbo is our sole candidate. But I don’t support the unconstitutional postponement of the extraordinary congress to 2025. There is simply nothing in our constitution that allows this. We missed out on a glorious opportunity to do things the constitutional way, while still protecting Comrade Netumbo as the sole candidate,” she said.

Bad example

A party functionary in the Khomas Region said, by flouting their own rules, Swapo leaders were setting a bad example for lower structures.

“All I can say is that the lower structures will not be respecting the party's legal documents going forward, and I foresee voter empathy.

“I feel [powerless] as a member and leader in the party. However, the membership will respond in November. They will show whether they are happy or not with this decision,” he said.

On Sunday, a former central committee member from the Kavango East Region said the central committee’s decision to skip the extraordinary congress within the stipulated time frame was irregular.

She added: “What worries me most is that these things are now being normalised under the guise of maintaining unity. How do you maintain unity by violating your own constitution? They are hiding behind unity to do their illegal things".

"Netumbo has our full support. She [would have sailed] through the extraordinary congress as the authentic, legitimate and sole candidate of our party,” the member, who backed Nandi-Ndaitwah’s Team Harambee at the 2017 ordinary congress, told Namibian Sun.