Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
The Landless People’s Movement (LPM) operative secretary, Edson Isaaks, yesterday threatened party candidates for this month’s regional council and local authority elections that the party will be stopped at nothing to recall non-performing councillors.
Isaaks made the threats while announcing party candidates for the Khomas region for the upcoming polls.
“We will not tolerate non-performing councillors. If we have to recall them, we will – even if we have to go for by-elections,” said Isaaks.
He said the LPM will contest 41 constituencies and 39 local authorities.
In Khomas, he said, the party is contesting in nine constituencies and also for seats on the city’s council.
He said at the heart of the party agenda for upcoming vote is immediate and urgent land delivery to the country’s urban homeless poor, the expropriation of vacant urban land, as well as the immediate and an end to corrupt land deals by councillors with businesspeople and elites.
“You should be at the forefront of stopping the evictions of landless poor, stop multiple land ownership, reverse the mushrooming of shacks, expedite the provision of serviced land and delivery of low-cost housing,” he told party candidates.
“We say no shacks must be abolished after the 25th of November 2020. No one must be evicted after 25th November 2020,” he added.
He said the party has witnessed how aggressive poverty is, especially in informal settlements.
“People accuse us of being an aggressive party. Yes, we are aggressive, and we have noble reasons to be so. We are aggressively fighting for the end to homelessness, corruption, elitism, self-enrichment, grand-theft, nepotism, tribalism, racialism and more,” he said.
He reminded candidates of the party motto, which he said is ‘restoring our people’s dignity’.
“You will have to live up to this motto,” he told the aspiring councillors. He said the party will put an end to the rot of massive corruption, build a climate change resilient economy, and invest in enterprise development to create jobs, secure jobs and improve our quality of life.
“A radical land and agrarian reform programme shall be implemented to free our people from landlessness, extreme poverty, hunger and massive unemployment,” he said. According to Isaaks, the party will implement a land redistribution programme, aimed at redressing past racial imbalances in land ownership patterns and also to correct present-day government’s unfair land allocations, as well as corruption in land acquisition, processing and settlement.
– ktjitemisa@nepc.com.na
Time to deliver… Landless People’s Movement (LPM) operative secretary Edson Isaaks with the party’s Khomas candidates for the regional council and local authority elections
Photo: Contributed