Christof Maletsky

THE Rally for Democracy and Progress says its leader Hidipo Hamutenya initiated the establishment of NamPrint for profit-making in a transparent manner and not to be used for vote-rigging in elections.

RDP Secretary for Information Jeremiah Nambinga was responding to a claim last week by Swapo Secretary for Information Jerry Ekandjo that Hamutenya was to blame for "the devil that is NamPrint" as he initiated the company while with the ruling party.

Ekandjo passed the blame to Hamutenya after opposition parties, including the RDP, objected to NamPrint getting the tender for printing this year's ballot papers.

The tender was subsequently withdrawn and given to a South Africa company, Ren-Form cc, which has printed ballot papers for several other southern African countries.

"If common sense were to prevail, then Mr Ekandjo would have realised that if the electoral competition is to be free and fair, the playing field must be completely levelled.

"To put it differently, one cannot have free and fair results if one of the participants is allowed to be a player and a referee at the same time. This is what is called conflict of interests," Nambinga said in a media statement yesterday.

He said Ekandjo must "leave legal and political issues to those who understand them, if he cannot see the blatant unfairness" of awarding the tender to Swapo-owned company NamPrint.

"The facilitation of the flow of information seeing this unfairness does not require a lot of intelligence but a little bit of common sense," he said.

Nambinga said the RDP found it "amusing" that Swapo was only now acknowledging Hamutenya's efforts and accomplishments although he had served many years in the party.

"This belated acknowledgement is, indeed a clear testimony that many in Swapo feel the vacuum of ideas that Hidipo Hamutenya has left in that party.

"His nomination to the Swapo presidential candidacy in 2004 is an additional acknowledgement that Hidipo Hamutenya is a befitting son of Namibia and that the Namibians can trust his capacity to lead this nation to great prosperity for all," Nambinga said.

He said the RDP would continue to fight any organisation or institution plotting to rig elections in Namibia.

"We shall rally and encourage all political stakeholders who cherish the principle of free and fair elections to resist all manoeuvres designed to unfairly manipulate the outcome of the elections. We owe it to our members and the Namibian nation at large to guarantee them credible elections," Nambinga said.

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