Cornered Swapo wants congress plaintiffs to prove N$2m ‘security’

Five Swapo members who have dragged the party to court for allegedly violating its own constitution must prove they can each afford N$400 000 - in case they lose the case and are ordered to carry the legal costs, party lawyers demanded.

Murorua Kurtz Kasper Inc said the party has formed a reasonable apprehension that the five members - who sued the party for its failure to hold an extraordinary congress within 90 days of president Hage Geingob’s death - will not be able to satisfy cost orders that may be made by the High Court against them.

The case is brought by Swapo members Reinhold Shipwikineni, Petrus Shituula, Joshua Martins, Erich Shivute and Aina Angula. The five are represented by lawyer Richard Metcalfe.

The Swapo lawyers said the party has in the past experienced difficulties in recovering costs awarded against individual party members.

“In fact, the first applicant [Shipwikineni] recently, in other proceedings pending against him in the High Court, went public seeking financial assistance to fund costs of litigation in those proceedings. In view of the aforestated, our clients hereby demand security of costs in the amount of N$400 000 from each of your clients,” Swapo’s lawyers wrote in a letter dated 25 June.

Cleansing pogrom

In response, Metcalfe said the suing members’ lawsuit was well within the rights they enjoy as party members who simply want to see leaders adhering to the Swapo constitution.

“How the applicants raise funds for the present litigation has absolutely nothing to do with [Swapo], unless [the party] intends [to indulge] in a cleansing pogrom of members who insist on compliance with the Swapo constitution,” the lawyer wrote.

An extraordinary congress is being sought to elect the party’s new president, following Geingob’s death from cancer on 4 February. Officially, Swapo vice-president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah is the party’s presidential candidate, having been endorsed as such before Geingob’s passing.

However, the party president’s death changed the dynamics because Article 15 (9) of the Swapo constitution requires that, under circumstances such as the death of the party head, the central committee – the highest decision-making body between congresses – must call an elective extraordinary congress within three months to elect a new party leader.

With the Swapo succession policy stating that an eligible party leader is the automatic presidential candidate in a national election, Nandi-Ndaitwah supporters are reluctant to convene an extraordinary congress, where another candidate might be voted, rendering her candidacy ineffective.

Therefore, the central committee decided that the extraordinary congress will only take place in April 2025, a decision the court applicants deem a violation of the party constitution.

‘Embarrassing’

In March, former Swapo secretary-general Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana moved that the central committee must resolve to back Nandi-Ndaitwah as sole candidate for the party presidency, which she urged must be endorsed by an extraordinary congress. This is because a party president is only elected by a regular congress, or an extraordinary one.

A week ago, Swapo veteran Nahas Angula said the party should have heeded calls to stick to its constitution and held an extraordinary congress in prescribed time, instead of enduring a potential ‘embarrassing’ court order to convene such congress as a result of the current court challenge.

Angula said: “The Pendukeni solution was the best. She was saying ‘let’s go to the extraordinary congress with Netumbo as our sole candidate’. In one or two hours, you’re done and, d'accord, you have your legitimate leader. Why should anyone resist to be properly endorsed? No one opposed Pendukeni’s idea to back Netumbo as a sole candidate.”