By Kuvee Kangueehi
Windhoek
Swapo Party backbencher, Jeremia Nambinga, resigned from the National Assembly on Thursday afternoon.
The former deputy minister handed in his resignation to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Theo-Ben Gurirab, on Thursday. He becomes the second Swapo Party parliamentarian to resign from the National Assembly in the last two weeks after Hidipo Hamutenya.
Although Gurirab could not be reached to confirm the resignation, a parliamentarian who spoke on condition of anonymity said Nambinga was seen clearing up his office and surrendered his office key on Thursday.
It is not yet clear whether Nambinga will join the new party, Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) like Hamutenya, as Nambinga has not resigned from the Swapo Party.
Swapo Party Secretary General, Dr Ngarikutuke Tjiriange, said Nambinga resigned from Parliament but not from the party.
“He has resigned from Parliament and that is normal and it does not mean that he will resign from the party.”
Tjiriange said he has not received a resignation letter from Nambinga and does not expect one. However, for a number of party members Nambinga’s resignation from Parliament does not come as a surprise and they believe he will join RDP.
Nambinga strongly supported Hamutenya’s presidential campaign at the Swapo Party Extraordinary Congress in 2004. In 2005 he failed to get a deputy ministerial portfolio.
According to the Guide to Namibian Politics, during the 1980s Nambinga was Vice Chairman of Swapo Party’s Windhoek branch, which at times acted as a de facto national executive inside Namibia. He was a literacy promoter from 1974 to 1983 and later emerged as a businessman in Katutura, where he owned a supermarket.
His political career took off after independence when he made it into the party’s Central Committee in 1991 and was made Secretary for Labour.
He advocated for unions affiliated to Swapo through their umbrella
organisation, the National Union of Namibian Workers, when the issue was debated in the early 1990s.
In 1994 Dr Sam Nujoma put him on the party list for the National Assembly, coming in at number 28 (Nujoma chose the first 32 candidates). A year later he was promoted to Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, second-in-command to Jerry Ekandjo, with whom he shares an antipathy for homosexuals.
In 2000 he was moved to Prisons and Correctional Services where he deputised his old comrade on the Windhoek branch committee, Marco Hausiku, until the latter was moved to Labour in 2002.
At Prisons, Nambinga replaced Michaela Hǟ