'Progressive forces' plot Windhoek comeback

The City of Windhoek could find itself under the leadership of the proverbial ‘progressive forces’ if a meeting scheduled for today between an alliance of political parties represented on the City’s municipal council goes as planned.

Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), Affirmative Repositioning (AR), the Landless Peoples Movement (LPM), the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) and the National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo) are set to iron out the terms and the allocation of positions. The parties hold 10 of 15 municipal council seats, with the remaining five occupied by Swapo.

The councillors must elect a mayor, deputy mayor and members of the city’s management committee.

While the ruling Swapo Party, with its five seats, holds the most seats on the council, its failure to secure eight out of 15 seats means it must rely on smaller parties to retain control of the city.

During last year’s mayoral elections, Swapo teamed up with Nudo to secure six of the 11 votes, which led to Swapo’s Queen Kamati being elected mayor. IPC’s four councillors were restrained from voting at the time.

New strategies

But new developments on the council suggest that IPC has joined the other parties in a bid to relegate Swapo back to the opposition benches on the council. Nudo is also said to have joined the rest of the pack in a bid to unseat Swapo.

There are also talks that Swapo’s Austin Kwenani and LPM’s Ivan Skrywer are amongst the front-runners to succeed Kamati as mayor.

The City is currently facing a leadership vacuum caused by strenuous political infighting, which has thrown the capital’s leadership affairs into turmoil.

Three elective council sittings in the last two weeks saw councillors unable to elect a new leadership team to lead the activities of the municipality for the next 12 months due to a lack of quorum.

Political turmoil continues

This week’s council meeting was also called off due to the unavailability of councillors.

Council sources say the delays to elect the new leadership are due to the prolonged negotiations and parties thrashing out how they should constitute the new leadership.

The recent events have painted a distressing picture of internal discord and political manoeuvring that have compromised the ability of the council to fulfil its mandate.

Already faced with a critical housing shortage, unemployment and an influx of people looking for better opportunities, Windhoek has become a hotbed of political parties that cannot seem to set their political differences aside.

Financial and political turmoil in recent years has beset the city of about 480 000 people that’s had three mayors since 2020 due to constantly shifting coalitions.