Staff Reporter
Windhoek-Swapo Party Elders’ Council (SPEC) will next month hold its elective congress where 500 delegates from all the 14 regions will congregate at Outapi in Omusati Region to choose its leaders who will represent the party organ at the Swapo congress slated for November.
SPEC secretary Mukwaita Shanyengana revealed the planned elections are for the positions of SPEC secretary, deputy secretary, members of the central committee of the SPEC and candidates that will contest the congress of the mother body.
He said the campaigns for the various positions among SPEC candidates have already started with the primaries at district conferences. “I am also campaigning. But the elders are mature. You don’t hear people fighting for positions because if we fight what kind of example are we going to be to the youth? We do things maturely and peacefully, not those things of insulting or de-campaigning others. The youths are the worst culprits – they even go to the extent of fighting physically.”
The SPEC secretary said they should campaign using their own names and credentials and desist from using the name of Toivo ya Toivo to get votes.
The SPEC elections will last from July 6 – 9. Shanyengana appealed to residents of Outapi to make accommodation available for the hundreds of delegates that will flock to the town and ensure delegates are treated well and appreciated for their economic contribution during the SPEC congress.
He said that on Saturday SPEC will convene a meeting for all its regional secretaries from the 14 regions to finalise transport logistics and do a reconciliation on how much has been collected.
Shanyengana had previously served as a member of the Swapo Military Council and was the regional political commissar for the Eastern Military Front in 1975 and 1975, among other postings in Swapo in the then liberation movement.