Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) leader McHenry Venaani has warned electorates to be cautious of “political actors” that he said are coming on the scene as “new messiahs”. 
The leader of the official opposition added in most cases these were Swapo defectors forming new parties out of anger, stating they would eventually return to the ruling party. 

“I want to urge voters to remain vigilant on political actors that are coming on the scene in as new messiahs, because parties must have ideological grounding, what they stand for and what they represent – and sometimes, people use tribalism as a card to get a springboard ahead of the elections,” he told journalists yesterday. 

“As we are unpacking the future of this country, we have to warn Namibians to stay away from tribal projects because there is great evidence that parties that start out of anger end up going back to the ruling party, Swapo.” 
Venaani maintained his party remained a formidable alternative in the country.  
“We don’t believe that any person that comes from Swapo can ever be an alternative to this country,” he said. 
The Landless People’s Movement (LPM), the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) and the Affirmative Repositioning movement (AR) were all in recent years formed by former Swapo members and leaders. 

Covid-19 exit plan
Meanwhile, Venaani urged President Hage Geingob to come up with a Covid-19 exit plan, adding his party will not be supporting any further lockdown to the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Come 17 September, if government does not produce an exit plan, we are not going to support the extension of the state of emergency because government must come back to parliament for extension. What we have seen while we are having this lockdown is that our figures are going up; the lockdown has not been helping,” he said. 
He said he has been lobbying with other political parties to stop any further extension – and “so far, we have the headway.” 
- ktjitemisa@nepc.com.na