Nudo youth want traditional leaders’ powers clipped

National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo) Youth League secretary general Veparura Kandirikirira wants the party’s constitution to be amended to address the over-involvement of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA) chiefs in party structures.

The youth leader feels the lines between politics and traditional matters in the party ranks are too intertwined.

In a recent interview on Evening Review, Kandirikirira said the current constitution is stuck in the past and should be tackled to relegate the involvement of traditional chiefs to advisory and mediation roles instead of automatically serving in executive positions.

“We need to amend our constitution. They [traditional leaders] should be respected, either to serve on the advisory council of the party but not to be actively involved in the administration of the party. They should be the ones to mediate, but unfortunately, some of them are part of those causing commotion within the party. How do you respect them when that is what they do?" he said.



'Cannot go on like this'

According to him, it is not politically sound to have more traditional leaders in the party executive structures than those elected to lead the party.

"Today, if I take the two factions, Paramount Chief Mutjinde Katjiua and Paramount Chief Hoze Riruako – both are not Nudo – now the traditional leaders that are now Nudo members are now commanded by people that are non-Nudo members. They can either serve in the elders council of the party, but not all 40 of them must serve in the central committee of the party. It is not making sense," he said.

He was quick to add that if the two chiefs were Nudo members, it would have led to smoother operations, fostering mutual consensus, and their presence on the central committee would not have been inappropriate. Kandirikirira also noted that times have changed, as the party previously had only one paramount chief, but now there are two.

"We had one OTA all these years, we had one PC, now we have two PCs. Where we were yesterday is not where we will be tomorrow – even those factions will be divided in four. We just need to run Nudo like a political party. Even if we have to go down because of these issues, then we have to build up, but we cannot go on like this. Nudo is not divided; it is just these two functions of the OTA. It is just a matter of sitting [at] the table," he said.



Headache

Nudo president Esther Muinjangue said they have to discuss the matter at the party level, acknowledging that it has caused upheaval for her during her presidency of the party.

"The thing is that in the time of the late Riruako, he was the traditional chief and president, and in that case, the centre of power was in one person, but then things changed," she said.

"We had the late PC Vekuii Rukoro, who was not a leader of the party but a leader of OTA. Then we had two centres of power. It is sometimes difficult for people to distinguish – even now, I have seen people hand over petitions to the traditional leaders, but they do not have mandates, so there is a need to look into this. We will have our national executive council meeting later this month, which will pave the way forward."

She added: "For now, there are urgent issues that we need to look at and the NEC will have to decide whether this issue is an urgent matter."

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