LPM ready for political party status

THE Landless People’s Movement (LPM) will be submitting its formal application for political party status to the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) this week.

“Our registration process as a political party will start next week. We have everything ready to register a political party with the ECN,” said LPM chief campaigner Bernadus Swartbooi at a fully packed meeting at the WK Rover hall at Keetmanshoop last Thursday. Swartbooi described the party as “God-fearing”, and vowed that it would restore the dignity of people if elected into power during the 2019 national elections.

He also revealed the party’s plan of action for the first 100 days in office, if elected into power.

People living in urban areas would be given plots of land for free within the first 100 days, while farmland measuring two million hectares would be expropriated, he said.

Swartbooi could, however, not state whether the LPM, which advocates ancestral land restitution, would expropriate land without compensation. The new party wants to reduce the size of the government, as well as the number of parastatals.

“We would trim the government ministries by merging some into one ministry. The mergers would save the government billions of dollars,” he said, adding that the savings would be used to increase monthly social grants to between N$3 000 and N$5 000.

Swartbooi said the new party would create jobs, especially for the youth, unlike the current government which focuses on constructing buildings. He claimed that what he termed the “building model” allowed politicians and permanent secretaries to line their pockets through shady construction tenders.

“We would create jobs, not buildings. Our government is bankrupt. They are so greedy,” he stressed.

He further denounced the national land conference scheduled for early October, claiming its agenda was to marginalise further those who have already lost their land.

“Your attendance at the land conference is a sign of selling out your community, willingly or knowingly,” he remarked.

Swartbooi said the “incompetent government” could not deal with the land issue as it would be a respondent in land claims. He also claimed that the government deliberately excluded the LPM from the land conference because of its standpoint on land matters.

Political analyst Hoze Riruako said, as things look, Swartbooi will use the LPM political platform to drive land restitution, genocide reparations and economic empowerment issues, especially from the south.

– luqman@namibian.com.na