THE four Swapo youth league leaders who were expelled from the party last month have taken their case to court.
The four – former youth secretary Elijah Ngurare, former information and publicity secretary Job Amupanda, George Kambala and Dimbulukeni Nauyoma – lodged a case against the Swapo Party in the High Court on Monday.
Amupanda, Kambala and Nauyoma were suspended from activities of the ruling party last year after they had cleared a piece of land in Windhoek’s Kleine Kuppe area in protest against corruption in land allocation before they were dismissed last month.
Ngurare’s dismissal, according to Swapo, came about because he supported Amupanda, Kambala and Nauyoma in calling on municipalities to make available land to the poor by 31 July 2015.
Now the four are challenging the party, claiming that the decision to expel them was unfair and unlawful and that the process used to arrive at the decision to expel them was not in accordance with the Swapo constitution and code of conduct.
Amupanda is the first applicant, Nauyoma the second, Kambala the third, and Ngurare the fourth.
They have cited Swapo, acting party president Hage Geingob, secretary general Nangolo Mbumba, deputy secretary general Laura McLeod-Katjirua, former president Hifikepunye Pohamba, party disciplinary committee chairperson Ngarikutuke Tjiriange and the Swapo Party Youth League as respondents.
In his affidavit, Amupanda accuses the party’s top leadership of bullying junior members, whom he said were treated in a “raw and unbearably painful” manner. Amupanda says the party’s top four – Pohamba, Geingob, Mbumba and McLeod-Katjirua – “rather chose an antagonistic and hostile approach aimed at silencing us by taking an unconstitutional and unlawful decision to immediately suspend us”.
He also says that he, Kambala and Nauyoma never occupied land illegally as alleged by the Swapo Party.
“What happened was simply a symbolic way of highlighting what was fast developing into a national housing crisis,” he says.
Amupanda argues that his suspension together with Kambala and Nauyoma in November last year by the party’s top four was unlawful and unprocedural.
He says the party and its structures are only allowed to exercise the powers entrusted to them by the party’s constitution and code of conduct and the decision to expel or suspend members can only be done in accordance with the prescribed procedure and any action incompatible with the procedures would be deemed unlawful.
Amupanda also says that Swapo, being a voluntary association, can only punish its offending members in conformity with the terms of its constitution and procedures set out in its code of conduct and that the party can only expel members after its disciplinary committee has carried out an inquiry and conducted a hearing because without such a process an expulsion is invalid.
“I point out that the Politburo has no right whatsoever to, as it pleases, overtake the disciplinary procedures, particularly without giving an opportunity to the members affected,” he says.
According to Amupanda, instead of following the party constitution and code of conduct, the Politburo acted as investigator, prosecutor, witness and judge without giving the affected parties an opportunity to be heard, and completely ignored the disciplinary committee.
Amupanda also says in his affidavit that Pohamba, who is the sixth respondent, was cited because of his alleged “irregular and unlawful involvement in certain meetings and decisions taken by a legally and constitutionally non-existent structure called ‘the top four’”.
He adds that Pohamba irregularly and unconstitutionally sat and participated in the Swapo Politburo meetings on 17 July that decided to expel the four.
Once Pohamba resigned from his position as Swapo president, Amupanda further says, he automatically lost his membership of both the Politburo and the Central Committee unless the party’s congress properly amends the constitution on the composition of the Politburo.
“There is no amendment that gives him the right to attend or participate in meetings of the Politburo after his bizarre resignation,” Amupanda states, adding that the former president’s presence in the Politburo destroys the legal validity of its decision to expel them.
Mbumba said yesterday the party would defend the case, and that anyone had a right to approach the courts.
