Itula skips parliament, cites dual candidacy concerns

Incoming opposition party president Panduleni Itula says he is not going to parliament because he is not interested in the opposition leader salary.

The Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) was elected as the official opposition party in the November elections, however, Itula has indicated he will not be going to parliament, but will rather send representatives.

He yesterday told The Namibian he is more interested in empowering the young people his party has sent to parliament.

“I am not chasing the one-million-dollar salary they pay to the official opposition leader.

There are people who go to parliament for money,” he said.

“At my age, my place is not in parliament. Perhaps in the State House, but definitely not in parliament,” he said.

Itula said in his understanding Article 17 of the Namibian Constitution prohibits dual candidacy.

He said the IPC’s deliberate decision to exclude the president, vice president, general secretary, and chairperson from the parliamentary list was to prevent the party from repeating the mistakes of the Congress of Democrats, which became vulnerable and ultimately collapsed after placing all its top leaders in parliament.

Itula noted that the move aims to hold its party members accountable to the leadership, while also emphasising that he will not ask for their money or the official opposition leader’s money.

He stated that if the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) had concerns about dual candidacy, sought input from political parties, and consulted the attorney general, he questions why they did not publicly announce their decision that dual candidacy was permissible.

Itula argued that if it were mandatory for a party president to be on the list, the ECN, as the gatekeepers of the gazetted parliamentary list, would not have gazetted it.

He said there is no reference in any Namibian law to the official opposition office.

“The only beat that refers to the leader of the official opposition is in the standard rules and orders of parliament, which says by definition, leader of the official opposition means a person that occupies that position of leader of the largest opposition party in parliament. The emphasis must be on a person and not a member,” he said.

Itula said the notion that it is a must to have a party president in parliament is misunderstood.

He referenced the Swapo parliamentary list, noting that the presidential candidate was not included. He stated that, according to the Swapo constitution rule 55(1), only the vice president, secretary general and deputy secretary general are automatically placed on the National Assembly list.

Itula said the party elected members of parliament from all regions and a convention was staged to allow party members to elect themselves, adding that he was not present during the election.

He said he is giving young people from all backgrounds an opportunity to make laws.

“It is not your intelligence or your education that makes you a parliamentarian or a lawmaker,” he said.

Itula assured that IPC has put their 20 parliamentarians through rigorous training to ensure they are well equipped.

Social justice lecturer John Nakuta says IPC will have to appoint a different individual as the official opposition leader as Itula is not included in their National Assembly list.

“My reading of the current legal scheme is that the IPC finds itself in an unfortunate, self-created conundrum,” Nakuta says.

They say Itula’s absence leaves them with no other choice but to choose from the list of incoming lawmakers.

“With Itula, the leader of their party, not being gazetted as a member of the National Assembly to be sworn in on the 21 March, someone else will have to be designated as the leader of the official opposition in the National Assembly,” Nakuta says.

The academic was making reference to the outcome of the 2022 case when the Supreme Court ruled that six Popular Democratic Movement members were unlawfully removed from the list of candidates after the 2019 election, and that they were to be sworn in to the National Assembly.

“In this regard, the political party is not at large, after the elections, to include a person in the list who was not declared duly elected as a member of the National Assembly,” Nakuta says.

On 3 January, the list of new National Assembly members was gazetted without the name of Itula.

Lawmaker Maximalliant Katjimune yesterday said the leader of the official opposition needs to be a member of parliament.

He referred to rule 37 of the National Assembly’s standing rules and order.

“The leader of the official opposition is selected from the largest opposition party represented in the National Assembly and must be a member of parliament pursuant to rule 37 of part 2 of the standing rules and orders of the National Assembly,” he said.

“If two or more opposition parties qualify as the largest opposition political party in the house because they hold the same number of seats, the leader of the opposition political party that obtained the most votes in the last general election must be designated as the leader of the official opposition,” the rule states.

IPC spokesperson Imms Nashinge yesterday said if they were wrong in not fielding their president for parliament, the ECN should have told them that they did not comply.

He referred the media to their argument in 2022 on the party’s stance.

IPC argued that it is unconstitutional for politicians to stand both as a presidential candidate and for the National Assembly list, as “IPC held the view that such dual candidacy is a violation of the principle of the rule of law and separation of powers”.

The current leader of the official opposition, McHenry Venaani, last month weighed in on this debate.

“Whomever they designate among their ranks becomes the leader of the official opposition,” he said.