In THE SPOTLIGHT this time is the The Press Conference, addressed by Cde. Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, Secretary General of the SWAPO Party, on 30 December 2009 at the SWAPO Headquaters, WINDHOEK .

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press,

Comrades and Friends,

I am happy for your favourable response to our request to cover and attend this Press Conference. As you are aware, the day after tomorrow is New Year, namely the dawn of the much awaited 2010! As we usher in a New Year, on 1st of January, it is customary that bidding farewell to an old year and welcoming a New Year, is normally celebrated with mixed feelings and emotions.

The year 2009, will go down in our history as memorable, as it is one of those years Namibians had the opportunity to elect their National leaders, the President and our lawmakers namely Members of the National Assembly.

As a sovereign people, let us pride ourselves for having conducted yet another peaceful and democratic election which was observed not only by African Observer Missions but also by observers from overseas including the European Union. All such bodies found and declared our elections as having been free, fair and credible.

Our SWAPO Party won both the Presidential and National Assembly contests hands down. This has come as no surprise to anybody, nationally or internationally, with the exception of those harbouring the Jonas Savimbi syndrome, that is to say, bad losers. This is a group of power hungry individuals whose only aim in participating in an election is to see themselves in the State House, otherwise nobody else should win. Shame on them!

Let us recall that our just-ended Presidential and National Assembly elections were preceded by a peaceful electioneering or canvassing for votes from the Namibian people. SWAPO Party campaigned throughout the length and breadth of this country. Our political rallies throughout this country drew huge gatherings comprising of men and women, old and young, to listen to the future plans of the Party they belong to or have sympathy for. From that perspective alone, the victory of SWAPO Party was indeed not only certain but evident and guaranteed by the Namibian people.

Some Political Parties chose to campaign the European style as obviously couched and advised by their Masters i.e. the so-called house-to-house strategy. They relied on the power of the purse as they spent millions of Dollars buying members to vote for their parties. They hallucinated to break SWAPO Party’s 2/3 majority by lying to the Namibian people that a database of 390 000 members was compiled to achieve that lunacy. Several media houses and commentators were caught in this ploy of deception and lies. It is no surprise further that, history likes to repeat itself. In 1989 a certain Apartheid South Africa’s sponsored political party behaved the same by spending millions of Rands on Boereworse and brotchens and a heap of doomsday promises, but alas, the people ate but voted for SWAPO. That is how intelligent the Namibian voting public was and still is.

This time around our people were promised heaven on earth including ploughing tractors for every village to taps of cooking oil to be erected in every kitchen. For those who have a natural hatred for the SWAPO Party they were promised “regime change” through the delivery of the votes of the Northern regions and a government under the leadership of another person other than Cde Hifikepunye Pohamba.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this politics of lies and deceit has terribly boomeranged and also it must be noted that it is an insult of the highest order to describe Namibians as not being “thinking voters” just because they rejected the ‘wannabe Presidents’. The irreversible reality is that altogether these political cry babies have to share 18 seats between themselves while SWAPO Party retained its 2/3 majority.

To save face, these “coalition of losers” have decided to hatch a plan that would portray them as doing something about their humiliating defeat. It must be tough on them because their lies and propaganda have a short span, after all, what do they tell those who had daydreamed to see SWAPO Party defeated and those whose purses have bankrolled the election campaigns of these political projects? Naturally, they had to concoct a convenient lie and tell their bosses that elections were rigged! But where is the evidence, they could not and cannot provide hence go on a fishing expedition for such evidence!

Fellow Namibians, we must remember that African countries are ever ruined by people such as these ones. These are not the first to do so; they are indeed in the footsteps of a plethora of others, Jonas Savimbi topping the list. The misguided logic of this Savimbi syndrome is to induce Coalition Governments on the models of Kenya and Zimbabwe where the Western puppets become Prime Ministers that is why in recent months we witness the expedition to Europe and interviews with imperialist media both within and outside Africa by implication reporting to the masters.

Last week the nine opposition parties ran to the High Court to be permitted to look for evidence of the alleged rigging of elections in the election documents. The Court strangely ruled in their favour by ordering ECN to avail to them access to certain election documents with the exception of the following:

- All counted and valid Ballot Papers
- All unused Ballot Papers
- ECN Secret Stamp

The above mentioned documents can only be availed when the court is satisfied by the evidence provided. At the present moment these political projects are involved in a round-the-clock photocopying of the documents made available by ECN in search for evidence of the alleged rigging they had already proclaimed to the world.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press,

SWAPO Party is not only cited as a respondent in the court case against ECN but an important stakeholder and interested party, having participated in the elections which are the subject of the court case at hand. For ECN to have availed election materials to the 9 opposition parties as of last week Tuesday in the absence of SWAPO and other parties cited in the case is irregular, in our view.

SWAPO Party believes honestly and sincerely that the nine opposition parties have no case as they have failed to provide the Court with any evidence whatsoever. What they are engaged in is propaganda stunt to save their faces in light of their embarrassing defeat. Going through election materials is an attempt to either plant evidence or steal the documents as they attempted to do two days ago. The lady who was caught smuggling these documents had the audacity to claim that it was “their documents”. We were under the impression that such documents were not for individual handbags but rather photocopied for the Applicants and not for a specific handbag of the Mrs Lena Nakatanas of this world. Indeed, she should have appeared in court because her intention was to smuggle out the document. In fact if the Police would investigate the matter further, they would find that Mrs. Nakatana was coached by other opposition members prior to being questioned by the Police, surely MTC records could shed more light on this matter. In our view, the Mrs. Nakatana’s incident is a serious case with potential to taint our democratic process in which the people of Namibia have invested much of their time and energy.

Furthermore, the nine opposition political parties know themselves that they do not have any shred of evidence or suspicion whatsoever. If they had any why should they place an advert in the ‘Republikein’ of Democratic Media Holdings of the 28 December titled as follows:

“Lost: Namibian opposition votes if found please return to the rightful owner.” The advert went on to say that “on the 27 and 28 November2009 Namibia voted and it seems that the elections were rigged.”

The advert went on to invite the public to offer any evidence in the event there is someone who might have seen something to give to these parties.

What a pity, if these parties who had agents to observe the voting and counting processes did not see anything untoward, how do they expect the public to offer things which do not exist?

As earlier stated above, the court case was a propaganda stunt to hoodwink the gullible into believing that some irregularities were committed. All political parties which participated in the elections had election and counting agents. None of their agents had provided any evidence of irregularities or stop the process at the polling station, counting centre or verification centre, hence they should not expect to find such in the documents now. After all, the ECN placed the Voters Roll in the care of Mr. Livius Hidipo Hamutenya’s wife. Can this make sense to you ladies and gentlemen that ECN, SWAPO Party or other respondents would be accused of tampering with the Voters’ Roll, for example? It is simple; the Nation is currently being entertained by political comedians with a string of lies.

On Thursday 24 December 2009, after the Court ruling, these parties started circulating fiction of victory over SWAPO Party. The content of the Court Order has now been made public and the Namibian public is now fully aware of it. Where is their victory?

Another lie circulating is that in Ohangwena Region, the ballot papers used there were printed by NamPrint and not by Ren-Form (the South African company). This is being given as the reason why apparently RDP and cohorts lost to SWAPO Party. The propaganda mill is also being oiled through sms from MTC numbers furthering these lies.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press.

Through you, I would like to appeal to our people to remain calm but vigilant. The enemy of our people is hard at work to destroy what we all have built over the past 20 years.

SWAPO Party shall never allow anyone to compromise or belittle the intelligence, loyalty and patriotism of the Namibian people. The agents of regime change should be cautioned to follow the democratic route of coming to power via democratic means other than to use unorthodox ways advocated by the Anti-African forces.

Finally, I wish all the Namibian people a peaceful, joyful and prosperous 2010.

SWAPO UNITED; SWAPO VICTOROUS; AND NOW, HARD WORK

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Wednesday, 30th December 2009, 16:40:57