Swapo divided along tribal lines in Caprivi

SWAPO political office bearers of the Katima Rural Constituency in the Caprivi have called on President Hifikepunye Pohamba to intervene in the deadlock of the party’s district conference in the constituency.

Both the Swapo Party Youth League (SPYL) and the mother body’s regional conferences in the Caprivi Region, have been postponed to this coming Friday and Saturday respectively and the bone of contention is the number of district branches in the Katima Rural Constituency.On 22 June and 24 June respectively, initial district conferences for both the SPYL and Swapo for the Constituency were held, with 16 of the 26 branches present. There was a rerun of these conferences this past weekend with 20 branch structures consisting mainly of Mafwe tribesmen boycotting the meeting.The fight for top Swapo Party positions in the Caprivi region are tribal, pitting the Mafwe against the Masubia.The Katima Rural district all along had 25 branches under the party leadership of the late Ernest Likando (Masubia) until 2005, when Leonard Mwilima, a Mafwe took over.It was during this period that the fight on the number of branches for that district gained momentum and an interim decision was taken to reduce the branches to 20. Part of this directive from the Swapo headquarters was that after the Regional Elections, these branches would be reconstituted afresh, which was done and a report in this regard was sent to the Office of Swapo secretary general by the party’s acting regional coordinator in Caprivi, Linus Mafale.In addition, a delegation of Swapo assigned leaders to the Region, led by the party’s Deputy Secretary General, Nangolo Mbumba, was dispatched to the region to verify the existence of additional branches and thereafter validate them. However, on June 16, Mbumba called Mafale and informed him that the district conferences scheduled for the next day should be cancelled since he had received a complaint. It was then postponed until the next weekend when some of the branches did not turn up and instead, they held another district conference this past weekend.During the past weekend, SPYL wanted to hold its regional conference in Caprivi but representatives of four of the six districts walked out and due to a lack of quorum, the meeting could not continue. The reason for the walkout was that the conference could not reach an agreement on the representatives of the Katima Rural Constituency.’We hope that this matter will be resolved amicably to promote the interest of the party in the Caprivi Region and not that of one tribe only. Therefore we have approach the Head of State to intervene,’ the district mobiliser, James Sankwasa told The Namibian.The district coordinator of the constituency, George Walikupo, emphasised again that the district conference held this past weekend is illegal as neither he nor the mobiliser supervised the process.Last week, Mbumba also warned that the correct procedures should be followed, pointing out that a Regional Councillor (Warden Matengu Simushi) is not allowed to arrange the conference.In the meantime some new office bearers were elected during Swapo’s regional conference in the Khomas Region the past weekend.The acting Swapo regional coordinator, Golthardt Kasuto, entrenched himself in the position when he ward off a challenge by City of Windhoek councillor Matilda Ukuva.The Deputy Mayor of the City of Windhoek, Gerson Kamatuka, who was the treasurer for the region, also had to eat humble pie against Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI) chairperson, Martha Namundjebo-Tilahun.Sacky Shanghala remained the mobiliser for the region.