I love him – Venaani on Muharukua

Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) leader McHenry Venaani says party member Vipua Muharukua, who recently resigned, was never a threat to him, but is a social media threat.

Venaani was yesterday commenting on Desert Radio on possible reasons for Muharukua’s resignation.

Muharukua resigned last week as a member of both the PDM and the National Assembly.

He was elected to the parliament, representing the PDM, at the age of 31 in 2014. Venaani said politicians leave parties for personal reasons.

“I am not going to venture into the game of speculation, but I know certain events happened before the resignation.

Muharukua was never a threat to Venaani. You must understand politics in its totality to understand,” he said. “Muharukua was a social media threat. People are saying Venaani will be challenged. There was no time that Muharukua controlled a single region in the party.”

Venaani said Muharukua was playing the regional politics card.

“He was saying because he comes from the Kunene region, Venaani must be removed, because the majority of the party members are from that region, and he must get that support.

“I told him it is dangerous to play regional politics . . . “We went to that region and Muharukua does not control a single branch in that region. And this is what transpired: Two weeks before his resignation, internal elections were held in the Kunene region, and a constituency committee was elected.

“None of the people supporting him made it to the constituency committee,” he said. Venaani said this clearly means the Kunene region, where Muharukua is from, does not support him.

“When you realise you can’t win a congress, you can’t just say it’s either this or that. Parties do not work like that,” he said.

He said parties do not revolve around individuals, but rather collectives. “To say that Muharukua resigned because of Venaani – how did I cause it? I did not call honourable Muharukua to a disciplinary hearing, I did not reprimand him, I did nothing. Zero. I cannot be blamed for someone’s resignation,” Venaani said. “On that score, whoever knows Muharukua,
tell him I love him. To me he is a younger brother, someone I trained, someone I brought to the forefront of politics, but in leadership you must be strategic, have willpower, experience and patience,” he said. Asked whether the two are on speaking terms, Venaani said they are. “We send each other messages . . . I am not petty. I can disagree with you on a political level, and later we are laughing together as if nothing happened,” Venaani said.

INTERNAL SQUABBLES

Political analyst Ndumba Kamwanyah says Namibians should not expect Venaani to confirm that he may have been the reason for Muharukua’s resignation.

“It is now public knowledge that there is a bit of division in the party by those who want to be at the helm, and it has created tension,” he says.

Kamwanyah says some party members supported that Venaani is not contested, which may have led to Muharukua resigning.

“When a politician does not stand a chance in terms of support they tend to resign and find a new home,” he says.