By: Andrew Kathindi
The date for hearing of the contempt of court application against the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) and the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) by its disgruntled members has been set for 23 September 2021.
PDM members Charmaine Tjirare, Reggie Diergaardt, Hidipo Hamata have filed the application in order to compel the electoral commission and the official opposition to abide by an electoral court ruling, which last year, stated that they and Frans Bertolini, Yvette Araes, Mike Venaani and Tjekupe Maximilliant Katjimune were to be added to a parliament list as members and that a public gazette be issued to that effect.
PDM Secretary-General Manuel Ngaringombe told The Villager that the party was ready to defend it however could not predict how the case will go.
“We already have an appeal. This guy (Tjombe) is saying we have a contempt of court, saying the appeal lapsed. We made sure the appeal did not lapse. Our lawyers said the appeal did not lapse. We defended the contempt of court. And if it will be a court case, it will be so. We are awaiting the case. I can’t predict the case.”
Ngaringombe further argued that the basis of lawyer Norman Tjombe filing the contempt of court on behalf of his clients was flawed as, he says, the appeal to the Supreme Court is still on.
“We followed our central committee list. And that’s what we have. We are defending it. We don’t want to complicate ourselves. We have the members that were elected to our central committee. Other changes came because of those new ECN whatever that they wanted to apply. We made it very clear to them that we stand on our list. So, when the case fell in the High Court, we appealed to the Supreme Court, we were unfortunately late with certain irregularities that were there, and that case we are still waiting.”
This comes as following the October directive, ECN had automatically removed some PDM members [who had refused to resign] from the party list in order to comply with the Electoral Act. The ECN then adjusted the party’s list of candidates for the National Assembly election that was finally gazetted. The new list included Tjirare, Diergaardt, Hamata. PDM, however, later sent different list of names to be sworn into parliament.
“He (Tjombe) puts it that, we’re late, and his clients should be sworn in, but we defended it and said it’s not true. “
PDM’s lawyers Theunissen, Louw & Partners argue that the appeals in this matter cannot be deemed to have been withdrawn.
“The fact remains that there is an appeal pending. Therefore, the order may be set aside. The nature of the first applicant’s powers and declaration is such that it has far reaching consequences.”
