With less than three months before the national polls, a National Unity Democratic Organisation breakaway faction on Saturday elected Barry Rukoro as the party’s new president during a hastily organised congress, attended by around 300 delegates.
But the party’s Utjiua Muinjangue-led leadership has rejected the congress as a hoax.
Effectively, the party now has two leaders, each claiming to be the legitimate one.
The last democratically elected secretary general Josef Kauandenge said the outcomes are a ploy to cause instability.
Rukoro, who is a former secretary general of the Namibia Football Association (NFA), was elected unopposed.
None of the other contesting candidates for the party’s presidency showed up at the congress.
During the gathering, he defended the legitimacy of the elective congress that was organised by Nudo’s self-proclaimed interim committee under Tjizapouzeu Uahupirapi, saying the traditional chiefs and over 300 delegates who attended the gathering have made a decision, and it must be respected.
“You must remember that the party’s last congress was illegally called by them, and that is where the mandate of the last leadership ended. In our opinion, our last congress was not called off, and we are now holding that very congress today. That’s why we are here. We have begged, pleaded and asked for an elective congress to be called, and for a new leadership to be elected, but nothing has happened. The other people [Muinjangue’s leadership] decided that they would only hold a congress next year, which is unacceptable. They are now calling this congress illegal, but they, themselves, are there illegally, so ours is a legitimate congress,” said Rukoro.
In a press statement released yesterday, Kauandenge rubbished the weekend’s elective congress.
“The Nudo leadership briefly converged this morning to discuss, among other issues, the so-called congress, held in the name of Nudo by a small splinter group claiming legitimacy. We want to reaffirm that Nudo’s official congress will be held next year in May as per the resolution of Nudo’s highest decision-making body, the National Council, which took that resolution on 31 August 2024 at its 6th meeting held in Windhoek.
“Furthermore, the same body as empowered by the constitution also reaffirmed that the current Nudo leadership under Muinjangue will lead the party until the next congress next year.
“Usually, our congress consists of 688 delegates from across the country. What we have seen from pictures emanating from the so-called congress is that not more than 150 people attended that meeting. With some faces, we don’t even know, and we can dispute as per our congress master list that they are not the real vetted delegates who should have attended the aborted congress,” he said.
He continued: “What is clear is that 80% of our real and authentic delegates to any congress emanating from branches have boycotted this so-called congress as they recognise the current leadership of the party, and they will only attend a congress that is called through the appropriate structures by the current leadership.
“Equally, there are processes and systems in place as per our constitution as to how a congress should be called and by whom or what structure. We don’t have a structure in our constitution that is called an interim committee that has the powers to call a congress”.
In July, despite splashing close to N$1 million, of which N$300 000 was reportedly borrowed to fill the budget deficit, Nudo failed to pull off an elective congress.
That failure now has a huge financial and credibility cost, and further shattered the party’s unity.
That failure, for some members, has left what is being interpreted by certain quarters as a leadership vacuum.