Erasmus Shalihaxwe
The Congress of Democrats (CoD) is unable to hold an elective congress due to a lack of funds.
This is despite the party preparing to participate in the November elections.
On Tuesday, the party’s acting president, Vaino Amuthenu, told the Windhoek Observer that the party has not been active in local politics for years and is currently on a revival mission.
“No, we will not have a congress. We don’t have money to organise a congress. We can’t even bring 50 people together to constitute a congress for a day. We are only focusing on campaigns for now, even though our campaigns are also limited due to a lack of funds,” said Amuthenu.
He said that for this reason, the party cannot talk about holding a congress for now since it is not getting any funds from parliament.
In the 2019 national elections, the party only managed to garner 4 654 votes, which led to it losing its seat in the National Assembly.
The electoral results have significantly decreased between 2004 and 2010.
The COD, an urban, left-liberal party, was founded in 1999 by former Swapo member and diplomat, Ben Ulenga.
At the time, their main concerns were the improvement of homosexual rights, the protection of the environment, and renewable energies.
In April, the party’s former member of parliament, Rosa Namises, announced her independent presidential candidature.
On the other side, the Monitor Action Group (MAG) is considering supporting another party in the upcoming elections.
The party’s chairperson, Willie Oosthuizen, is still undecided about whether to participate in the elections.
He did not reveal which party they wished to support during the elections.
“No, we are not contesting. In fact, we have not made a decision about whether to participate or not yet. We are considering teaming up with another political party that is contesting,” said Oosthuizen.
MAG was initially known as the Action Christian National (ACN), a nationalist party established in 1989 to entice white people to participate in the country’s first democratic elections.
The party maintained alignment with the National Party of South Africa at the time.
It managed to secure three seats in parliament in the 1989 election.
At the time, Jan De Wet was the party’s chairperson.
Kosie Pretorius led the party as its chairperson when it changed its name to MAG in 1991.
There are currently 20 political parties registered on the Electoral Commission of Namibia’s database that are eligible to participate in the November elections.
