NEW: Nudo councillor Joseph Uapingene has been elected as Windhoek's new mayor. PHOTO: FILE
NEW: Nudo councillor Joseph Uapingene has been elected as Windhoek's new mayor. PHOTO: FILE

City: AR, LPM, PDM hop into one bed

'If you don’t change the system, the system will change you'
A new City of Windhoek faction consisting of the Affirmative Repositioning (AR), Landless People's Movement (LPM) and Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) opposes the composition of the management committee elected Thursday last week.
Jemima Beukes
The City of Windhoek council elections on Thursday last week have led to the Affirmative Repositioning (AR), Landless People’s Movement (LPM) and Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) breaking away as a faction that opposes the composition of the current management committee (MC).

The council elected National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo) councillor Joseph Uapingene as Windhoek mayor and Swapo’s Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma, Queen Kamati and Austin Kwenani as members of the MC.

Only one left

The MC is supposed to be comprised of five members, however, magistrate Jozaan Klazen accepted that since three members constitute a quorum, the three nominated members could be confirmed as duly elected and the additional two members would be elected at the next council sitting.

Despite complaining about the dominance of one party on the MC, PDM's Clemencia Hanases and LPM's Ivan Skrywer had rejected their nominations to the committee.

Uapingene, Job Amupanda and Ilse Keister of AR, Hanases, Skrywer and Sade Gawanas have all been nominated for the position of Windhoek mayor; however, they all withdrew, leaving only Uapingene.

We are out

Shortly after the council elections, AR's Amupanda called for an urgent press conference where he told the meeting that they oppose absolute power and they wanted a formula that worked.

"We are saying it's a very dangerous thing. We are not going to allow speculation; we are going to speak to you directly. The councillors here (PDM, LPM and AR) will have programmes of their own. If a resident has problems, we will go to your house and listen to you," he said.

New ways of doing it

Skrywer said it will no longer be business as usual and that they would have drawn up their own timetable by Saturday and will appoint a researcher and spokesperson from amongst themselves.

"We came in here to change the system. If you don’t change the system, the system will change you. I want our people to read the unwritten and understand politics. If the public wanted to give one party a majority, it would have reflected in the voting," he said.

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Namibian Sun 2024-11-22

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