Erasmus Shalihaxwe
Minister of Urban and Rural Development Erastus Uutoni has tabled amendments to Section 77 of the Electoral Act of 2014, which will allow public servants to be nominated and accept nominations as candidates for the National Assembly election without having to resign from their employment.
Previously, Article 47 of the Electoral Act required public servants nominated for the National Assembly elections to resign from their jobs.
The Law Reform and Development Commission was tasked with reviewing the Act, producing a report, and making recommendations to Parliament.
This week, Uutoni presented a motion to consider the amendments as a matter of urgency before the commencement of the 2024 calendar for the presidential and national assembly elections.
According to him, the Act aims to enable public servants to utilise their leave days and take leave from their jobs from the moment their names appear on the party list until the announcement of the election results.
“This will then mean that persons who did not secure seats at the National Assembly can return to their employment. However, for the candidates that manage to secure seats at the National Assembly, such persons will be deemed to have resigned from the public service as of the date of the announcement of the results of the National Assembly,” said Uutoni.
He argued that the person participating in the National Assembly election is not guaranteed that his or her political party will win or obtain enough seats in the National Assembly in accordance with the Namibian Constitution.
If such a person fails to obtain a National Assembly seat, then the person becomes unemployed as he or she is unable to return to the employment that he or she initially resigned from for the purposes of participating in the National Assembly election.
“Article 47 deals with the disqualifications of persons to be members of the National Assembly, and in terms of Sub-Article (1)(e) of that Article, one of such disqualifications is that a person may not become a member of the National Assembly if the person is a remunerated member of the public service,” he argued.
Adding that the Electoral Act, 2014, read together with Article 46(1) and Article 47(1) of the Namibian Constitution, is subject to varying interpretations that may lead to the infringement of citizens’ constitutional right to take part in political activity as per Article 17.
