By Petronella Sibeene
WINDHOEK
Intensive screening by Swapo Party branches to flush out Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) members within the ruling party continues, claiming two more casualties at Tsumeb yesterday.
Councillor of the Tsumeb Constituency, Lebbeus Tangeni Tobias, and District Coordinator of Swapo Party Women’s Council and member of the Standing Committee, Rebecca Kalola, were the latest to be scrapped from the list of delegates to the Swapo Party congress.
Oshikoto Swapo Party Regional Coordinator, Armas Amukwiyu, confirmed the removal of the two from the congress list yesterday.
“The reason is that they are linked to the new party. We are suspicious of them,” said Amukwiyu.
He said the two were given a chance to state the political party they are ready to serve but during a meeting at Onankali, Tobias did not turn up and Kalola failed to come out and state her position regarding her political loyalty.
Contacted for comment, Kalola said she and Tobias were last week called for a meeting with the District Coordinator. It came out in the meeting that Kalola was recently seen recruiting members for the RDP at the Tsumeb Community Hall.
Kalola refuted the allegations saying she remains a staunch Swapo Party supporter without any intentions to leave.
“They should prove that I am supporting the RDP. I have never campaigned for the RDP,” she said.
Tobias declined to comment on his removal from the list.
The two were formerly informed of the decision to remove them as congress delegates during the district committee meeting held yesterday afternoon.
This brings the number of names taken off the delegates list to the congress to three.
On Monday, the Councillor for Tobias Hainyeko Constituency, Erasmus ‘Captain’ Hendjala was suspended from Swapo Party activities following his alleged participation in the recruitment drive of the RDP.
The move to pluck out all individuals was backed by the Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) when it called on Swapo Party members to disassociate themselves from the new political opposition, the RDP.
A source within the Swapo Party yesterday confirmed that the 107 districts in the country’s 13 regions were at work assessing and scrutinising names of anyone suspected of hiding in the Swapo Party.
The source also said before expulsion from the Swapo Party in December 2005, the secretary general of RDP, Jesaya Nyamu, was not only found inciting division, violence and factionalism within the Swapo Party but had intentions to have opposition from within.
In the notes, on four small pieces of paper, Nyamu, did not only advance his ideas of the possibility of forming another political party and laid out two “options”, for former Foreign Affairs Minister Hidipo Hamutenya’s supporters after he was dismissed as minister, but also mentioned how Nyamu intended to weaken the Swapo Party structures, the source added.
Those ‘two-timers’ pose the greatest danger of weakening or destroying the Government, something the Swapo Party will not condone, the source added.
Secretary General of the Swapo Party, Ngarikutuke Tjiriange, said the party and its structures continue to follow procedures to ensure that delegates to the party’s fourth congress are true members.
He was confident that the screening process is being carried out in a meticulous and systematic way.
However, the Swapo Party Secretary General also warned that those who might slip through the screening and attend the congress while, in fact, they belong to the opposition, would be taken to task.