Kuzeeko Tjitemisa
New Popular Democratic Movement parliamentarian Charmaine Tjirare has accused national leaders of having lost moral compass in a hard-hitting maiden speech.
“Our nation has gone off the rails,” said Tjirare who hails from the bushy village of Omupanda in the Okakarara constituency, Otjozondjupa region.
“There is just basically very little working well for our society. We have lost our moral compass. We are looting, we blatantly violate laws that govern the republic without consequences. But maybe I am too fresh and too enthusiastic and optimistic about the task that lays ahead, perhaps too controversial for a maiden speech, but there you have it, I am Charmaine and so will say it anyway…our nation is
sick.”
She claimed crimes of all kinds, including gender-based violence, are now commonplace and that if MPs do not reach out to the public, they will be horribly failing the country.
For far too long, Tjirare said national leaders have been underestimating the inherent nature of the country’s citizens.
However, she said a new set of revolutionaries are awakening and it is firm and is demanding its right to not only be served and served purposefully, but it is chiefly demanding its right to serve itself and chart its own path forward.
“Ignore and underestimate us at your own peril! If 2019 elections didn’t give you the rude awakening, 2024 will catch you off guard,” she told fellow MPs.
“Mark my words. Namibia is our only home. We shouldn’t loot it dry and sell it out as though we have another “home” to navigate to.”
She further encouraged Namibians to act now because continuing to act casually is unfair to their children and neither them nor their children will benefit.
“Standing up is something you owe them,” she added.
Tjirare, Reggie Diergaardt, Mike Venaani, Frans Bertolini, Yvette Araes and Maximilliant Katjimune were recently sworn in as members of parliament by Supreme Court Judge Dave Smuts.
They replaced Esmerelda !Aebes, Geoffrey Mwilima, Pieter Mostert, Johannes Martin, Kazeongere Tjeundo and Timotheus Shihumbu.
Their swearing-in follows a Supreme Court order that the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) should not have allowed the PDM to change its list of candidates for the 2019 National Assembly polls after the election, in which the PDM won 16 seats in the National Assembly.
Acting judge of appeal Theo Frank set aside the ECN chairperson’s announcement in March 2020 of six PDM candidates as elected members of the National Assembly, declared their swearing-in as members of parliament unlawful and invalid, and ordered that they should immediately vacate their seats in the August House. -ktjitemisa@nepc.com.na