Four opposition parties in Gobabis council plan to form alliance
GOBABIS – Opposition parties in the Gobabis constituency said, now that they have secured seats in the local authority, they will form a partnership in the council.
Four of the seats of the Gobabis municipal council was allocated to four opposition parties, the Landless People’s Movement ( LPM), National Unity Democratic Organisation (Nudo), Gobabis Residents Association and the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), while Swapo managed to secure three seats.
In an interview with Nampa during the announcement of the Gobabis constituency provisional results Thursday night, LPM candidate for the Gobabis constituency
Lesley Pienaar said, now that LPM and other three opposition parties acquired seats in the local authority council, they will form a coalition.
“We have been fighting against corruption and unfair treatment in the Gobabis municipality for the past four years. We don’t get land even if we apply legally, so we had to grab land. We started this fight for land with the previous constituency councillor in 2015 and he left office without giving us answers and we continued the same fight with the current councillor,” he explained.
He further stressed that the opposition parties in the constituency have worked accordingly and they have finally penetrated into the council chambers.
Also speaking to Nampa, Nudo candidate Elvire Theron said, as a team the parties have great plans for the eastern town but their main focus will be tackling issues that the Gobabis residents are not happy with including the Red Force Debt Management company which has been contracted by the council to collect outstanding debts.
“We are going to clean up the town council and I think the first issue we will deal with is the N$11 million corruption that took place in the municipality, we need reports and we need to know where that money went because we cannot step into a mess that we know nothing about. We need answers,” she said.
Meanwhile, Swapo Party candidate Augustinus Tebele who is the elected candidate for the Gobabis Constituency according to verified election results announced by the Electoral Commission of Namibia on Friday, thanked the electorates in Gobabis for once again giving him the mandate to stand for them.
He said, “there is no more time to politicise things but to act and deliver”.
“As I take office once again, my main focus will be on the urban areas because it’s where high poverty rates lie, so although it is not in my mandate as regional councillor, I advise the local authority councillors and push them, so that people who are in the informal settlements can get essential services such as sanitation,” he added.