ONDANGWA – Traffic in Ondangwa came to a standstill on Wednesday when Swapo and Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) supporters came close to physical brawls over the display of party posters on street lights.
The tussle started around 13h00 and only ended around 18h00 with the assault of a female security officer, and a RDP member being arrested.
The two parties’ supporters crossed paths in Ondangwa’s Main Road where Swapo supporters were rallying on the streets as part of the election campaign.
At the same time, RDP members were putting up posters for their presidential candidate Hidipo Hamutenya on lamp posts in the same street.
Swapo supporters allegedly discovered that RDP members had removed some of the Swapo candidate posters and replaced them with those of their candidate.
Swapo supporters then confronted RDP supporters asking them rather to make use of the empty lamp posts. The two parties’ followers came close to a physical scuffle when the police were called to the scene.
Apart from the allegations of posters being removed, RDP also placed their posters above Swapo posters on some lamp posts, claiming that Swapo had taken all the poles that are “strategically placed”.
“It is childish and immature to put up your party posters above another party’s poster. RDP is looking for a fight but we’re not interested, we respect authority. President Hifikepunye Pohamba and our candidate (Hage Geingob) have asked for a peaceful election and we are going to stick to that. We don’t want a fight as they are doing in Windhoek putting up posters inside people’s yards.
“Apparently they are putting their candidate’s poster above Swapo posters because they are ‘going to be the ruling party’, which is ridiculous. There are dozens of empty lamp poles in Ondangwa, they could have easily taken the unoccupied ones,” said Swapo Regional Coordinator for Oshana Region, Erastus Kapolo.
RDP Secretary for Omusati Region Immanuel ‘Imms’ Shikongo, who is at the forefront of putting up posters in the northern region claims that they did not remove Swapo posters, but simply placed RDP’s above Swapo’s on lamp posts.
“While we were putting up our posters, the police came by, demanding we should remove our posters, which we agreed to. But in this mood that I am right now, I don’t think that I will remove any poster.
“After all, there is nothing wrong with having posters of different parties on one lamp post because the EVMs (electronic voting machines) will also contain all parties,” said Shikongo.
Shikongo who threatened to remove all of Swapo’s posters in Oshana Region if any of RDP’s posters happen to be removed claims that the practice of parties sharing a lamp post happens all over the country and thus there was nothing special about Oshana Region not to allow the same practice.
He further claims that a security guard from Shilimela Security provoked him and his 12 counterparts, by kicking one of their two vehicles that were parked in the road.
“We asked her what she was doing and she told us that she was kicking the vehicle because it had a picture of Hidipo Hamutenya and she hated him,” said Shikongo.
Shikongo claims the security guard was not assaulted because her supervisor removed her immediately from the scene.
However, Banda Shilimela the owner of Shilimela Security Services claims his employee was assaulted and opened a case against a RDP member.
“I was passing Ondangwa when I found a group of our members (Swapo) arguing with RDP because they (RDP) had removed our posters. RDP was looking for a fight but I told our members not to fight them because we are going to defeat them anyway on November 28.
“It all started around 13h00 and around 18h00 I received a call that they had just assaulted one of my employees,” recounted Shilimela.