Placido Hilukilwa
ASSER Vincent, Johannes Martin, Angeline Immanuel, Ronny Negonga and Mandume Tuhafeni are the candidates vying for the vacant position of the Ondangwa Urban constituency councillor in the Oshana Region.
President Hage Geingob earlier this year appointed constituency councillor Elia Irimari as the new the Governor of Oshana, thereby opening the door for a by-election that has now attracted the interest of four political parties and an independent candidate.
The ruling Swapo party has fielded former Ondangwa mayor, Ronny Negonga, and the party is using its heavy guns to ensure it retains the constituency.
The Popular Democratic Movement (former DTA) has chosen its sole Ondangwa local authority councillor Johannes Martin as its candidate for the vacant position.
Mandume Tuhafeni is standing as candidate for the Congress of Democrats (CoD).
Asser Vincent, who was the DTA/PDM candidate in the 2015 regional elections, is now standing as candidate for the All People’s Party (APP), while 27-year-old Angeline Immanuel is standing as an independent candidate.
It is said that the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) also wanted to join the fray, but missed the nomination deadline which was on 6 May.
More than 15 000 people voted in the Ondangwa Urban constituency during the 2014 general elections, but only 4,300 cast their votes during the 2015 regional elections.
The three participating political parties in the 2015 regional elections were Swapo, whose candidate Elia Irimari. Swapo won comfortably with 3,918 votes, followed by the DTA/PDM’s Asser Vincent and the RDP’s Anna Nikanor with 232 and 117 votes, respectively.
A supplementary registration of voters was done last month during which slightly more than 1,200 voters were registered.
According to the Electoral Commission’s Victoria Hango, the final voters’ roll will be made available on 20 May.
The by-election is scheduled to take place on 15 June.
