Nujoma hosts lunch in honour of activist

FORMER President Sam Nujoma hosted lunch yesterday at his house outside Windhoek to which the three contenders for the Swapo vice presidency were invited.

Nujoma hosted the meal in honour of the Belgian anti-apartheid movement member Poulete Pearson Mathie, who has supported Swapo since 1971.The lunch was attended by Jerry Ekandjo, Hage Geingob, Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, Nangolo Mbumba and Nickey Iyambo, Utoni Nujoma, Laura McLeod-Katjirua and other invited guests. Also in attendance was the Swapo youth league secretary, Elijah Ngurare.Although the lunch was in honour of Mathie, those in the know say that Nujoma, although not referring to the congress fights, tried to use the occasion to smoothen relations between the cadres after the bruising campaigns by bringing them around the same table.The lunch preceded a youth league press conference at which Ngurare said ‘as a democratic process [the congress] has provided us with the the new leadership, we should move forward as a united team’.He said the intra-party campaign trail has ended, now ‘let us work hard for the benefit of the party and country. To this end, we are calling upon all members, especially the SPYL members, to conduct themselves in the sprit of comradeship as enshrined in the party constitution.’Ngurare warned that they remain ‘militant, unmoved in the quest of addressing bread-and-butter issues’.The SPYL was given a political lesson after none of their nominated candidates failed to get to elected at the Swapo congress over the weekend.All three their preferred candidates, namely Foreign Affairs Minister Uutoni Nujoma, Regional and Local Government Minister Jerry Ekandjo and Education Minister Abraham Iyambo, all ended on the losing side.