Chucked out!
PDM members of parliament told to pack and go
The official opposition faces a conundrum after a landmark ruling has ordered it to replace six unelected members from Parliament.
The official opposition, the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), was thrust into a state of chaos yesterday after the Supreme Court ordered it to have six of its members chucked from the National Assembly and replaced with those duly elected in 2019.
The landmark ruling means Charmaine Tjirare, Reggie Diergaardt, Mike Venaani (father of PDM leader McHenry Venaani), Frans Bertolini, Yvette Araes and Maximilliant Katjimune must be sworn in as members of Parliament (MPs) with immediate effect.
The gazetted list of PDM MPs for the 2019 parliamentary election, in which the party won 16 seats, contained the names of those party members, but after the election, PDM disowned its original list and replaced those members with Esmeralda !Aebes, Johannes Martin, Kazeongere Tjeundo, Geoffrey Mwilima, Timotheus Shihumbu and Pieter Mostert.
It is the latter group that must vacate its seats and make way for those whose names were duly gazetted, the court ruled yesterday.
Tjirare and fellow PDM National Assembly candidate Hidipo Hamata challenged the party's decision to change its list of candidates for the National Assembly after the 2019 election, a process which their lawyer Norman Tjombe labelled as ‘fraudulent’.
All departing MPs had quit their jobs, mostly in the public sector, to join Parliament. The resignations were to bring the party in compliance with a directive to all political parties by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) for all members nominated on the parliamentary lists not to hold public office.
In their judgment yesterday, Supreme Court judges Peter Shivute, Petrus Damaseb and Theo Frank ordered that Bertolini, Tjirare, Araes, Katjimune, Diergaardt and Venaani senior be sworn in as MPs.
The greatest headache for PDM at this point is the fear that the latter group may turn on the party leadership and sue them for loss of income.
There are talks from insiders that the party has been put under so much pressure and is considering to compensate the now illegal group of MPs from party coffers.
In response to this, McHenry Venaani said: “Your sources are off the radar. No truth in all assertions, really.”
Wasn’t intentional
The Supreme Court has also directed the Registrar of the Court to serve a copy of the judgment to the Speaker of the National Assembly Peter Katjavivi for ease of implementing the court’s ruling.
Katjavivi’s office referred all queries related to this matter to the ECN, which the Supreme Court deems unauthorised to alter or amend gazetted party lists.
PDM yesterday said it is yet to decide what to make of the judgment.
In a statement, secretary-general Manuel Ngaringombe said PDM respects the judgment, but added that it is paramount to highlight that the party didn’t engage in an exercise of wilfully or intentionally breaking the law.
Instead, it insists that it followed its list as endorsed by its central committee of September 2019, and followed established electoral precedence in the nomination of its members to fill seats.
“The PDM is consulting internal party structures on this matter in order to find consensus within the confines of the rule of law while maintaining cohesion within the party. The PDM remains focused on the groundwork already established towards the watershed 2024 presidential and national assembly election,” he said.
We will comply
Meanwhile, ECN chief electoral officer Theo Mujoro said the commission, which along with PDM fought against Tjirare and Hamata’s lawsuit, will “comply with the Supreme Court order as handed down”.
The judgment further agreed with the Electoral Court’s conclusion last year that PDM was not entitled to change its list subsequent to the election.
During the run-up to the elections in 2019, the official opposition submitted its original election list decided by its congress to be gazetted.
During this process, it was found that some of these people were civil servants and therefore had to either resign from their respective jobs or rescind their party positions.
However, after the elections, PDM reverted and replaced six of the gazetted names with names from the original list.
This prompted the legal suit, which yesterday sent the party crashing.
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The landmark ruling means Charmaine Tjirare, Reggie Diergaardt, Mike Venaani (father of PDM leader McHenry Venaani), Frans Bertolini, Yvette Araes and Maximilliant Katjimune must be sworn in as members of Parliament (MPs) with immediate effect.
The gazetted list of PDM MPs for the 2019 parliamentary election, in which the party won 16 seats, contained the names of those party members, but after the election, PDM disowned its original list and replaced those members with Esmeralda !Aebes, Johannes Martin, Kazeongere Tjeundo, Geoffrey Mwilima, Timotheus Shihumbu and Pieter Mostert.
It is the latter group that must vacate its seats and make way for those whose names were duly gazetted, the court ruled yesterday.
Tjirare and fellow PDM National Assembly candidate Hidipo Hamata challenged the party's decision to change its list of candidates for the National Assembly after the 2019 election, a process which their lawyer Norman Tjombe labelled as ‘fraudulent’.
All departing MPs had quit their jobs, mostly in the public sector, to join Parliament. The resignations were to bring the party in compliance with a directive to all political parties by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) for all members nominated on the parliamentary lists not to hold public office.
In their judgment yesterday, Supreme Court judges Peter Shivute, Petrus Damaseb and Theo Frank ordered that Bertolini, Tjirare, Araes, Katjimune, Diergaardt and Venaani senior be sworn in as MPs.
The greatest headache for PDM at this point is the fear that the latter group may turn on the party leadership and sue them for loss of income.
There are talks from insiders that the party has been put under so much pressure and is considering to compensate the now illegal group of MPs from party coffers.
In response to this, McHenry Venaani said: “Your sources are off the radar. No truth in all assertions, really.”
Wasn’t intentional
The Supreme Court has also directed the Registrar of the Court to serve a copy of the judgment to the Speaker of the National Assembly Peter Katjavivi for ease of implementing the court’s ruling.
Katjavivi’s office referred all queries related to this matter to the ECN, which the Supreme Court deems unauthorised to alter or amend gazetted party lists.
PDM yesterday said it is yet to decide what to make of the judgment.
In a statement, secretary-general Manuel Ngaringombe said PDM respects the judgment, but added that it is paramount to highlight that the party didn’t engage in an exercise of wilfully or intentionally breaking the law.
Instead, it insists that it followed its list as endorsed by its central committee of September 2019, and followed established electoral precedence in the nomination of its members to fill seats.
“The PDM is consulting internal party structures on this matter in order to find consensus within the confines of the rule of law while maintaining cohesion within the party. The PDM remains focused on the groundwork already established towards the watershed 2024 presidential and national assembly election,” he said.
We will comply
Meanwhile, ECN chief electoral officer Theo Mujoro said the commission, which along with PDM fought against Tjirare and Hamata’s lawsuit, will “comply with the Supreme Court order as handed down”.
The judgment further agreed with the Electoral Court’s conclusion last year that PDM was not entitled to change its list subsequent to the election.
During the run-up to the elections in 2019, the official opposition submitted its original election list decided by its congress to be gazetted.
During this process, it was found that some of these people were civil servants and therefore had to either resign from their respective jobs or rescind their party positions.
However, after the elections, PDM reverted and replaced six of the gazetted names with names from the original list.
This prompted the legal suit, which yesterday sent the party crashing.
[email protected]
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