Disorder broke out in the National Assembly on Wednesday after opposition parliamentarians refused to allow Swapo chief whip Hamunyera Hambyuka to push through the approval of a new Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) chairperson and commissioners.
As a result, the assembly’s Wednesday session, which was convened on an urgent basis to consider the reappointment of Anti-Corruption Commission director general Paulus Noa and his deputy, Erna van der Merwe, and the appointment of a new chairperson and commissioners for the ECN, was adjourned without conclusively dealing with the two topics.
Hambyuka wanted National Assembly speaker Peter Katjavivi to ask parliamentarians to vote on whether to approve president Hage Geingob’s nomination of Elsie Nghikembua as ECN chairperson and Emmerentia Leonard and Joram Rukambe as commissioners of the ECN.
Initially, Katjavivi was in support of Hambyuka’s motion, saying: “We have spent too much time on this particular item. We need to move. Is there any secondment so that we move?”
However, Katjavivi retreated after opposition parliamentarians stood up and protested against the move, arguing that they should be allowed to debate the item as long as they wanted.
“We risked our lives to travel from across the country to come and deal with these supposedly urgent matters. We must therefore not be limited on how we debate on these items,” said Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) member Vipua Muharukua.
During the debate on the nomination of ECN commissioners, Nudo MP Joseph Kauandenge criticised Geingob’s decision to nominate Nghikembua for the position of ECN chairperson, saying it was a Swapo deployment.
Nghikembua has been an ECN commissioner for the past five years and is the assistant director of operations of the University of Namibia’s business school.
“We must move away from politicising public institutions, if they are apolitical they must remain apolitical for the simple reasons that we need to restore faith in those institutions,” said Kauandenge. “The president has made his decision, right or wrong, he chose to nominate Swapo functionaries.”
Home affairs minister Albert Kawana rejected Kauandenge’s remarks, saying the notion that a member of Swapo should not be allowed to occupy a position in a public office “is a dangerous precedent”.
Kawana said Nghikembua’s political affiliation had nothing to do with the decision by the president to nominate her for the ECN position.
“The notion that if a person is a member of Swapo, supporter of Swapo, sympathiser of Swapo [they] should never occupy any position, that one I reject. It is a dangerous precedent. People must not be punished based on their political affiliation,” Kawana said.
PDM leader McHenry Venaani said opposition members were concerned about the integrity of people appointed to lead public institutions which require integrity.
Rally for Democracy and Progress leader Mike Kavekotora also questioned Nghikembua’s competence.
