Africa-Press – Namibia. THE agreement between the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) and the United People’s Movement (UPM) has come under scrutiny after lawyers have pointed out it was not an alliance agreement, and did not comply with the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act.
The agreement is thus invalid, they say, and UPM members elected on a PDM ticket to the National Assembly should therefore be removed.
This comes after the Supreme Court found that the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) should not have allowed the PDM to change its list of candidates for the 2019 National Assembly (NA) polls after the election, in which the PDM won 16 seats in the NA.
The Supreme Court, in a judgement by acting judge of appeal Theo Frank, set aside the ECN chairperson’s announcement in March 2020 of six PDM candidates being elected members of the NA, declared their swearing-in as members of parliament unlawful and invalid, and ordered that they immediately vacate their seats in the assembly.
The six members are Esmerelda !Aebes, Geoffrey Mwilima, Pieter Mostert, Johannes Martin, Kazeongere Tjeundo and Timotheus Shihumbu.
The court further ordered that the ECN’s chairperson should announce that six other candidates who had been on the PDM’s election list for the NA poll in November 2019, and who were removed from the list after the election, had been duly elected as members of the assembly.
They are Charmaine Tjirare, Reggie Diergaardt, Mike Venaani, Frans Bertolini, Yvette Araes and Maximilliant Katjimune.
Lawyer Norman Tjombe yesterday wrote to the PDM and ECN to say the agreement with the UPM was not furnished to the ECN as it should be, according to the Electoral Act.
Moreover, the UPM members, in terms of the agreement, could not be identified as PDM members.
Tjombe said the UPM members – Bertolini, Van Wyk and Becker – remained UPM members, and have never taken up membership of the PDM at any time.
“In terms of Section 77(4)(c) of the Electoral Act, the list of candidates on the candidates list must be members of the political party nominating the said candidates, and in terms of Section 77(5)(a) of the Electoral Act, an authorised representative of the political party – in the instant matter, Mr (Manuel) Ngaringombe of the PDM–- made a declaration that the candidates on the list for the PDM have complied with Section 77(4) of the Electoral Act, including being members of PDM,” the lawyer wrote.
He said the declaration was obviously incorrect and false, and possibly a criminal offence.
“As the agreement between the PDM and UPM is not an alliance agreement . . . the candidates on the PDM list were to be only members of the PDM and not of another political party.
“Consequently, Frans Bertolini, Jan Johannes van Wyk and Elizabeth Celeste Becker, being members of the UPM. were unlawfully on the PDM list of candidates, and were therefore unlawfully sworn in as members of the National Assembly,” Tjombe said.
He demanded that Van Wyk and Becker vacate the NA, and that Bertolini should not be sworn in.
This means the PDM should revert to its original list with Hidipo Hamata, Loide Ipinge and Wilhemina Benz, in addition to what had been ordered by the Electoral Court and the Supreme Court and should be sworn in.
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