Rundu
Swapo members in Rundu Rural Constituency on Wednesday demonstrated against the councillor nominated to represent them in the regional and local authority polls in November.
Aggrieved Swapo party members said they do not want Rundu Rural Constituency Councillor Michael Sikongo, who won the recent primary elections for Swapo candidate.
Sikongo retained his candidature after he convincingly walloped Lucas Mbangu with 110 to the 46 votes in the elections organised by the district conference.
In their petition the group said they decided to march and hand over a petition to Swapo, because Sikondo has been unproductive and was rarely available to respond to their grievances during the ten years he has been in office.
“We decided to stage a peaceful demonstration against the Rundu Rural Constituency Councillor Michael Shikongo for the reason that he has been unproductive during the past ten years in office and he failed to address the issue concerning development in Rundu Rural. He does not comply with directives from the Governor’s Office,” the group’s spokesman, Joseph Mbamba, said.
They further accused Shikongo of being involved in conducting “meetings not in public, but in secrecy during the night at certain houses.” The group also accused the incumbent councillor of threatening community members when they approached him to ask advice on various projects that are supposed to be implemented in the constituency, funded by various organisations.
“If you continue asking about any development he will threaten you that you will disappear one by one,” said Mbamba. The group’s spokesperson claimed the election of candidates was not done fairly, as the election was not held at the venue it was scheduled to take place at and the branch structure, which was used to vote in the candidates, was “bribed” and “bought”.
“The branch structure that was used mainly contained members that were not elected by the community, but by the councillor for his own personal interest,” Mbamba added. Moreover, in their petition the group alleged that youth in the constituency have zero access to the constituency office.
They are fearful that if Swapo’s leadership does not act on their request the party could be punished at the polls and could lose the constituency to APP. “We Swapo members don’t want to lose our constituency office to other political parties, like APP because of him. We don’t want him to stand as our candidate for the upcoming elections and if he is going to stand as the candidate, then we won’t vote,” he said.
They want Swapo to tell them where it is written in the constitution that a councillor has the mandate to appoint a branch structure without the involvement of the community.
Their petition was received by Kavango East Swapo Regional Mobiliser Erick Tjandja.
“Thank you very much for the effort you have made by travelling all the way here to bring the petition. As a regional mobiliser I’m thankful to receive it. We do not make individual decisions; this is a petition that calls for a regional executive committee to convene and look into the issue,” Tjandja promised.