Hope on the horizon at Usakos :: Namibia Internet Gateway cc ::

Articles: Hope on the horizon at Usakos

Posted by admin on Wednesday, June 02, 2004 - 01:37 AM

THE appointment of office bearers to the Usakos Town Council is still in limbo more than two weeks after the Local Authority elections.
The stalemate was prompted by Swapo's decision not to co-operate with coalitions formed by opposition parties. The rift widened last week after a failed attempt to find an amicable solution, but yesterday afternoon the Municipality's CEO, Sebastiaan !Gobs was hopeful the situation would be resolved this week. He said the parties had indicated to him that they were ready to proceed. According to the Local Authorities Act, office bearers must be in place within seven days of the election date. At Usakos, the swearing-in ceremony of newly elected councillors was disrupted when the ruling party's candidates refused to take up positions on the management committee. The coalition does not have enough councillors to constitute the management committee. The third member had to come from Swapo, but they did not nominate a candidate and refused to accept a nomination put forward by the coalition. Last week the three Swapo candidates at Usakos appeared to be adamant about not co-operating with the UDF-CoD coalition, that has four seats on the Council. Swapo candidate Peter Hermann, who allegedly refused to sit down with the CoD candidates in negotiations, first said he was not in a position to comment on anything when The Namibian contacted him. The party later issued a lengthy press statement that confirmed their unwillingness to accept the coalition and work with them. In the view of Daniel Stramiss, former community activist and CoD candidate, who was elected Deputy Mayor:"The lives of 7 000 residents have been put on hold." "We had hoped that by today everything would be in place and we can start our work," Renathe Namases, newly elected Mayor, told The Namibian. According to Stramiss, the Swapo candidates had tried to get the UDF to break the coalition with the CoD and side with them. This was confirmed by Namases. She said Swapo had been willing to talk to the UDF but not to the CoD. Swapo also refused to accept a coalition offer to relinquish the Deputy Mayor position. Stramiss would then have taken up the chairmanship of the management committee. "With the management committee complete, we could at least have started to work, but Swapo was not interested," he said. Hermann told The Namibian yesterday afternoon the parties still needed to sit down and sort out a few things. However, he said that Swapo would only sit with the UDF. "It is up to the UDF to share whatever was decided with their coalition partner." He was positive that an agreement would be reached soon. !Gobs said he was trying to set up an appointment with the Magistrate this week to act as presiding officer over the swearing in ceremony.

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