THE top four leaders of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) were elected at the party’s first National Convention that took place on December 5 -7, 2008 in Windhoek.

Hidipo Hamutenya (President)
Hidipo Hamutenya was born on June 17, 1938 at Odibo in the Ohangwena Region. He completed his primary education at the Engela Primary School, before attending Augustineum Secondary and Teacher Training College at Okahandja.

His father, Aaron Hamutenya, was a founding member of the Swapo Party, which played a major role in the politicisation of the young Hamutenya, who joined the party in 1961 at the age of 22. The same year, he went into exile, to Dar es Salaam in the then Tanganyika. In 1963, he was sent to Cairo, Egypt, where he worked at the Swapo Party office.

Thereafter, he spent a brief time in Bulgaria before proceeding to Temple University High School in Philadelphia, US. Upon graduation in 1964, he enrolled at Lincoln University where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science in 1968.

While there, Hamutenya together with Hage Geingob and Theo-Ben Gurirab, were appointed as Swapo Party representatives to the Americas. In 1973, he obtained a Masters Degree in Political Science, Development Studies and Economics from McGill University in Quebec, Canada.

Hamutenya was recalled to Tanzania and appointed Swapo Secretary for Education in 1973. In 1976, he was elected to the Swapo Party Central Committee and Politburo and later appointed Deputy Director and Head of the History and Political Science Department of the United Nations Institute for Namibia (UNIN) in Lusaka, Zambia. In 1981, he was elected Secretary for Information and Publicity.

From 1978-89, Hamutenya was a key member of the Swapo Party negotiating team for the UN Settlement Plan for Namibia’s independence. After 30 years in exile, he returned to Namibia in 1989 as a member of the party’s elections directorate.

He was a member of the Constituent Assembly and its constitution drafting committee. He was also the Chairman of the Constituent Assembly’s National Symbols Committee responsible for producing the national flag, the national coat of arms and the national anthem.

At independence, Hamutenya became a Member of Parliament, and was Namibia’s first Minister of Information, overseeing transformation of the former South West African Broadcasting Corporation (SWABC) into the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). In 1993, he became Minister of Trade and Industry, and was instrumental in the promotion of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) programmes and the introduction of the export processing zone (EPZ) policy and programme. He became Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2003, introducing, among others, the policy of economic diplomacy.

In 2004, he was nominated as one of three Swapo Party presidential candidates – alongside President Hifikepunye Pohamba and Prime Minister Nahas Angula. He resigned from the Swapo Party in 2007 and from his National Assembly seat after 17 years. By November 2007, the RDP was launched, and Hamutenya was appointed as its interim president. He was subsequently unanimously elected as the RDP President in December 2008.

Steve Bezuidenhout (Vice President)

Stephanus Bezuidenhout was born on June 3, 1957 at Keetmanshoop, Karas Region. He attended primary school at Karasburg, Keetmanshoop and Stampriet. He was one of the first students to enrol at the newly founded Marianum High School at Stampriet, in the Hardap Region. Bezuidenhout spent a year studying theology to become a Catholic priest to impact the lives of the victims of apartheid.

Bezuidenhout’s early political influence was his father, Stephanus Bezuidenhout, who as a teacher resisted the then Administrator-General of South West Africa, and the ethnic interim governments (Coloured Administration). He was also influenced by political stalwarts like Otillie Abrahams. In 1976, he left for South Africa where he spent two years at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Pietermaritzburg. While studying philosophy there, he became acutely aware of universal rights campaigner, realising that all people are equal, irrespective of colour or background. This experience, he says, awakened his desire to fight the apartheid injustices.

With lecturers like Dr Alan Boesak, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Archbishop Dennis Hurley, he studied liberation theology. The 1976 student uprisings and subsequent years of unrest in South Africa and Namibia, cemented Bezuidenhout’s political resolve.

In 1979, he attended the conservative Catholic John Vianney Seminary, from which he was expelled later that year for questioning the apartheid system. He returned to Namibia and worked at Barclays Bank until 1991. He joined Telecom Namibia in 1994.

Bezuidenhout joined the Swapo Party in December 1989 in Keetmanshoop, and was active at local branch level. In 2007, he was part of a team that established the RDP, and was appointed interim Vice-President, a position he was formerly elected to in December 2008.

Jesaya Nyamu (Secretary General)

Jesaya Nyamu was born on March 20, 1942 at Oshigambo in the Oshikoto Region, to Albertina Shipanga and Abjater Nyamu.

He did his primary education at Oshigambo and later the Finnish Missionary School for Boys at Oniipa. In 1958, he attended the Ongwediva Teacher Training College.

In 1960, he was one of few students selected to attend the first ever secondary school in northern Namibia at Oshigambo.

He joined the Swapo Party in 1963, and after completing his junior secondary school the same year. He went into exile in Tanganyika, now Tanzania.

He was the first Namibian to broadcast political messages from Radio Tanganyika, for which he was later charged in absentia with sedition by South African courts.

In 1964, he left for the United States (US) under a scholarship from the African-American Institute.

While there, he became active in foreign students’ politics, becoming the secretary of the Pan-African Student’s Union for Western US. He took part in several student protests against the Vietnam War, which landed him in an American jail for a short time.

In 1970, Nyamu returned to Tanzania, and was appointed Swapo Secretary for Political Affairs. He served as Deputy Secretary for Information, and Chief Representative in Zambia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Angola.

In 1990, Nyamu was appointed Under Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1991, he was promoted to Deputy Minister of Mines and Energy. He later went on to become Minister of Mines and Energy, and as Minister of Trade and Industry in 2002.

In this capacity Nyamu was discharged from the Swapo Party, after notes that linked him to probable moves to form a new party were discovered. Nyamu then went on to become one of the founding members of the RDP.
Agnes Limbo (Deputy Secretary General)

Agnes Mundia Limbo was born on May 12, 1957 at the Kanginzila village in the Caprivi Region. She started her primary education at Kanono Primary School, and later moved on to the Kizito Secondary School in Caprivi. In 1974, on a visit to relatives in Zambia, Limbo came into contact with Namibian freedom fighters like Sam Nujoma, Moses Garoëb, Peter Nanyemba, among others. This would change the course of her life entirely as she was introduced to the Swapo liberation movement.

On her return to Caprivi, Nanyemba gave her materials to bring to Namibia to advocate for the movement inside the country.

She left Namibia in 1975 to join Swapo, and on her arrival at the Oshatotwa camp, she and others were sent for military training.

In 1989, Limbo went to study in the United Kingdom.

She then went to Luanda, Angola, where she worked for the Swapo Department of Health and Social Welfare.
Limbo returned to Namibia in 1989 and worked in various capacities for Swapo.

She resigned from Swapo in 2007 and joined the RDP. She was elected as the Deputy Secretary General at the December 2008 RDP National Convention.

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