By Staff Reporter
WINDHOEK – The nation will in two weeks’ time know who its vice-president, prime minister and deputy prime minister will be, according to the Office of the Prime Minister and President-elect, Dr Hage Geingob.
Meanwhile, as his inauguration as president draws closer, Geingob on Monday said in a statement that he will make a ‘major announcement’ on February 2 and subsequently announce the members who will form part of the presidency.
“As far as the President-elect’s plans for the setting up of Namibia’s next government is concerned, he intends to make a major announcement on February 2, 2015,” he said in a message posted on his official Facebook page.
“The Prime Minister is also preparing to hold three press conferences at which he will announce the formation of the Presidential Council, the Vice-President, the Prime Minister as well as the Deputy Prime Minister,” reads the statement dated January 19, 2015.
As per the constitutional amendments made last year, Namibia will from this year on have a position of vice-president.
Government argues that while maintaining the positions of both vice-president and prime minister will make the executive top-heavy, this is the price the country has to pay for inclusivity and nation-building.
“We are still building and reconciling this nation of ours. Positions like the vice-president allow for those leading us, particularly the president, to be able to appoint persons from the diverse spectrum of the people of Namibia, so as to foster nation building,” Presidential Affairs Minister, Albert Kawana, said in August last year as he motivated the need for that position.
Together with its Presidential candidate, Swapo Party last year won the Presidential and National Assembly elections by an overwhelming majority.
The ruling party won 77 of the available 96 parliamentary seats while Dr Hage Geingob scored over 87 percent of the total votes during the presidential polls.
Geingob will become the country’s third president, after the incumbent Hifikepunye Pohamba, who succeeded Dr Sam Nujoma.
Pic Geingob