Feud between Swapo leaders in Omaheke intensifies

GOBABIS – As the Swapo congress approaches there are clear lines of division emerging in some regions.

One such region is Omaheke, where the ruling party is said to be divided in two camps.The divided group are led by the acting Omaheke Regional Swapo coordinator Job Muniaro, and Member of Parliament (MP) Festus Ueitele.Ueitele was the regional coordinator before he was elected to Parliament and Muniaro was put into an acting capacity.Reliable sources within the party who spoke to Nampa on condition of anonymity said the division again reared its head last Thursday during a meeting at the Swapo regional office in Gobabis.’The meeting failed to take place because I adjourned it on the basis that it did not form a quorum,’ said Muniaro.The meeting was supposed to decide on a date for the regional conference and also to elect a full-time regional coordinator to serve the party for the next five years.The meeting was also aimed at discussing the allocation of resources for the holding of district conferences, which were supposed to have started electing new leaders for district positions.Muniaro said at the start of the meeting, he counted all the members present, especially those who form part of the regional executive committee, as they are the ones with the voting rights to make legitimate decisions.’Only nine of the regional executive members out of 20 were present. The rest were ex-officio, including Ueitele,’ he said.The regional executive organ is made up of the regional co-ordinator, treasurer, regional information and mobilisation officer, all district co-ordinators and their information and mobilisation officers, one member from the affiliate union, youth wing and one each from the Women’s and Elders’ Councils.’Upon realising that most of the people that form the regional executive committee were not present, I told the meeting that the quorum was not met, so the meeting was adjourned,’ he said.Muniaro said after Ueitele heard this, he apparently also counted the members present, including himself and his younger brother Frederick Ueitele, who attended as a representative of the National Union of Namibian Workers (NUNW).According to Muniaro, Ueitele does not have veto rights because he is an ex-officio member, and he was only invited to the meeting as a national leader assigned to the region.Other national leaders assigned to the region are ministers Albert Kawana and Bernard Esau, Omaheke governor Laura McLeod-Katjirua and former Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Ngarikutuke Tjiriange. He said Frederick Ueitele is not a member anymore, because on March 12 this year, the NUNW head office in Windhoek replaced him with Daniel Humbu.Festus Ueitele disagreed. He told Nampa that he is still the Omaheke regional Swapo coordinator, who was voted into office by the majority of Swapo members there. Therefore, he is a member of the regional executive committee, he argues.’Even in February this year, I was in a regional executive meeting with all my veto rights. I was not appointed by the Swapo head office. I was voted into this position. How can Muniaro count me as an ex-officio?’ asked Ueitele.He said Muniaro sees him as a threat in his political career, as Muniaro wants to hold onto power with ‘delaying tactics’.Ueitele also charged that Muniaro is acting like this because he has support from one or two ‘strong’ senior Swapo members at the head office in Windhoek.’I am very disappointed and humiliated. Muniaro never explained to me why he said I am not a voting member to form a quorum. We even called him back to the meeting after he had walked out, but he refused to come back,’ said Ueitele.The chairperson of the Swapo national leaders assigned to the Omaheke Region, Albert Kawana, yesterday said he was informed of what happened in the meeting on Thursday.He maintained that the meeting was adjourned because there was no quorum.Kawana described the tension between Muniaro and Ueitele as ‘a divergence of opinions, which is allowed in the party, according to Article Four of the Swapo Party constitution’. – Nampa