Six political parties opt out of 2024 presidential race, leaving 15 candidates to choose from

Six political parties will not have presidential candidates in the upcoming 2024 presidential and National Assembly elections.

This leaves Namibians with 15 presidential candidates to choose from.

Yesterday was the last day for any person or political party to submit their names to the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN).

The United People’s Movement has thrown its weight behind independent candidate Ally Angula, who was rejected due to insufficient signatures.

She has until this morning to submit all the required signatures to the ECN’s system for her nomination to be accepted.

Christian Democratic Voice president Gotthard Kandume yesterday said the party is supporting Swapo’s presidential candidate, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.

“It is what the people just decided. But we do have a candidate we are going to support – Swapo’s candidate,” he said.

The party was deregistered by the commission earlier this year, but went to court last week to overturn this decision.

National Unity Democratic Organisation of Namibia (Nudo) secretary general Joseph Kauandenge yesterday said the party’s internal squabbles have contributed to it not fielding a presidential candidate.

“That’s why we decided, despite our own internal issues . . . that we are not going to field any presidential candidate,” he said.

The party has postponed its congress numerous times, with the latest being successful, and elected its candidates for the National Assembly.

“We’ll just have to look among those who are there,” he said.

Other parties include the newly registered National Empowerment Fighting Corruption, National Democratic Party of Namibia and National Patriotic Front of Namibia.

Despite no presidential candidate, all these parties have submitted their lists of representatives to the National Assembly.

The Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) is the only registered party which has not submitted any candidate or National Assembly representatives.

WRP member Hewat Beukes says the party is involved with an ongoing case with the National Assembly’s speaker regarding finances.

“We will participate in elections once these things are sorted out. But if not, then it’s meaningless for us to participate in elections,” he says.

Angula yesterday said: “We had to capture [signatures] on the system. So instead of being out there, everything came to a stop on 2 October, when I arrived in Windhoek and created the profile and realised the challenges of the system.”

She said she was struggling with having an abbreviated name on her voter’s card.

“I’ve got an abbreviated name on my voter’s card. When I tried to create my profile with those details on the ECN card, it refused. And then they said just put the details as per the voter’s card,” she said.

Angula asked how many Namibians’ names are abbreviated on their voter’s cards.

“So now, when you are capturing this information on the system, you must go and find what the abbreviation stands for,” she said.

She said she has worked 12 hours a day for 13 days to capture names.

“It would require 35 days to capture 7 000 names,” Angula said.

Parties which have submitted their presidential candidate and National Assembly lists are: the Action Democratic Movement Party, Affirmative Repositioning (AR), All People’s Party, Congress of Democrats, Body of Christ Party, Landless People’s Movement, Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters, Swapo, United Namibians Party United Democratic Front of Namibia, Swanu of Namibia, Popular Democratic Movement, Rally for Democracy and Progress, Republican Party of Namibia and the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC).

IPC leader Pandulani Itula yesterday said he is “not contesting anybody”.

“We are competing for that power, but not contesting each other,” he said.

The IPC leader said it was critically important that his campaign is conducted scientifically, not just politically.

“But scientifically to make sure we come to the level that we know we are going to win,” he said.

AR spokesperson George Kambala yesterday said young people have been on the periphery of decision-making on the table for far too long.
“It’s always been sidelined,” he said.