Its sea of supporters and once-dominant blue and yellow colours might have vanished from the local political arena, but Congress of Democrats’ president Vaino Amuthenu insists the party is still alive and on the comeback trail.
With Namibians set to go to the polls in November this year for the 2024 Presidential and National Elections, he shared with New Era
that they have been hard at work reviving party structures across various regions, and reminding Namibians that “a new beginning is here”.
To get the party’s comeback underway, the CoD will on 16 March launch its 2024 campaign at Okankete in the Ondangwa district, where Amuthenu said a large turnout will be expected.
“To those who say CoD is dead, I say to them, we are still very much alive and on a comeback trail. Yes, I must admit that we have been quiet over the past few years, and that has somehow affected our presence on the ground. But the CoD is still around and alive, and we will soon be embarking on a new beginning.
Resources to take our campaign to all regions is currently a huge problem, but we are working smartly with
various partners to ensure all Namibians are reached by the CoD and get our message,” he noted.
Amuthenu, who replaced veteran politician and diplomat Ben Ulenga as party president in 2015, is positive that the CoD’s impact will be felt by all, despite a dynamic and very complex political landscape, which boasts forces such as the official opposition Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), Landless People’s Movement (LPM), National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo), and others.
“As a party, we are looking beyond the 2024 elections, as our goal is to make sure that the CoD returns to its former glory days. As said, we are a bit limited in terms of resources to implement all our programmes, but we are definitely on the march to revive the party,” he continued.
The CoD was established in 1999, prior to that year’s general elections, by Ulenga and several Swapo stalwarts who had left the ruling party.
In that year’s presidential election, Ulenga finished second behind Founding President Sam Nujoma and received 10.5% of the vote, while in the parliamentary elections, the CoD
gained seven seats.
In the 2004 elections, the party won 7.2% of the popular votes and five out of 78 seats, making it the second-largest party behind Swapo.
But in the 2009 elections, the CoD plummeted to eighth place in both Presidential and National Assembly (NA) votes, receiving less than 1% of all votes as they lost all but one of their five former seats in the NA.
Prior to the 2009 elections, which marked the beginning of the party’s collapse, the CoD held an extraordinary party congress at Keetmanshoop,
where Ulenga was re-elected as party president after he defeated the late Ignatius Shixwameni by 14 votes.
But Shixwameni rejected the outcome, and along with his faction staged a walkout in protest as he alleged rigging. Him and his faction would later approach the High Court to press these claims and in December 2008, Shixwameni and his supporters announced their resignations from the CoD to form a new party, the All People’s Party.
The High Court later nullified the outcome of that congress, and ruled
that the expelled CoD members be allowed back into the party.
The court also ordered that a new congress be held within five months, a decision which Ulenga accepted. He, however, only led the party until 2015 before tendering his resignation.
-ohembapu@nepc.com.na