By: Kelvin Chiringa

President Hage Geingob has taken issue with what he has described as a lowering of morale within the rank and file of the Swapo Party.

Geingob was speaking at the opening of the party’s Central Committee meeting this Saturday.

The party’s low morale was telling at the opening of the Central Committee meeting where both Geingob and Shaningwa struggled to have the followers sing.

“I travel all the way, I do, fresher than you. I take you; I see you; you’re walking as if you’re dead. What is happening? You are not even singing. No Slogans. Are you dead or are you singing? Is that discipline. You don’t want to look into the parliament that you are disrupting your own parliament that you’re controlling (sic). That’s the point.

“Swapo Party is Swapo Party. I see some hearts, weak hearts, who are now wavering, afraid to be identified as Swapo members, not wearing Swapo colours because some thought Swapo is apparently finished,” he said.

The Swapo president also spewed venom at the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) which a few weeks ago admitted that it had wrongly declared the Swapo Party winner in the disputed Ndonga Linena elections.

The party’s number one said that the commission is taking the party for granted and making its followers feel guilty.

His remakes come hard on the heels after party secretary general, Sophia Shaningwa, castigated the commission and its now former chairperson, Notemba Tjipueya, whom she quoted as saying that she had mistakenly declared the party victor.

The Ndonga Linena dispute was brought to the courts by the All People’s Party (APP) which had issues with some spoilt ballot papers and was accusing the ruling party of electoral theft.

“We were told we lost there (in Ndonga Linena); (that) we were given a thing by the electoral commission. Can you see such a shameful thing? We don’t complain about the electoral commission. We don’t complain about votes and so on. We are being taken for granted.

“Somebody saying that I mistakenly gave votes to Swapo, can you imagine that? How come people think we are strangers or people who are here at the mercy of somebody else? We are made to feel guilty, ashamed that we are Swapo members,” he said.

Tjipueya is credited as having made the utterances of mistaken declaration of victory for the Swapo Party but she denied this in an interview with The Villager’s sister Eagle FM.

But Geingob has taken issues with what he sees as humiliation his party has been subjected to.

The APP victory indeed added more wind in the sails of its head honcho, Ignatius Shixwameni, who openly chastised the party for being liars and electoral thieves.

The ruling party, however, won the recount after it had announced that it would snub the whole process, arguing that it was not invited when the ballots were unsealed.

APP further refused to accept defeat.

“They thought we lost because we apparently lost the two thirds majority by one seat. We are being taken for granted and we are being humiliated. So, really this thing of being underdogs when we are not must stop. Even when you are walking you are walking like you’re finished,” he lashed out.

Meanwhile, Geingob directed his anger at the PDM which has accused the ruling party of selling out on the issue of the genocide.

The LPM has also lashed at Swapo’s genocide agreement calling it fake and a sell-out document.

“How can people call us sell-outs, puppets? DTA people! Calling Swapo sell-outs, puppets! No. But anyway, the question of discipline. Comrade (Frans) Kapofi introduced a motion in a very professional way. Scholarly way. Under Swapo we discuss things,” he said.