Landless People’s Movement deputy leader Henny Seibeb says officials who control cameras during sessions of the National Assembly are biased and have an agenda of painting LPM parliamentarians as “peculiar caricatures” who thrive on controversies and disruptive politics.
“We have noted on several occasions how cameras in parliament are turned and focusing on us even when chaos and disruptions are emanating from Swapo benches,” Seibeb said in a letter sent to National Assembly speaker Peter Katjavivi on Tuesday.
In the letter, Seibeb requested a meeting with Katjavivi and the camera operators or the company responsible for the live recording of parliamentary proceedings.
The purpose of the meeting, Seibeb said, would be to discuss the purported manipulation of parliament session visual recordings with the aim of painting the LPM in a bad light as disrupters.
The real disrupters according to Seibeb are a clique of Swapo MPs, including ministers and deputy ministers Pohamba Shifeta, Hilma Nicanor, Emma Theophilus, Maureen Hinda and Utoni Nujoma.
However, Seibeb claims these MPs are never in the spotlight when disrupting proceedings.
Seibeb further claimed that Katjavivi has on numerous occasions failed to reprimand those habitual disruptors, who he charges are always instigating opposition MPs into personal squabbles by “hurling insults or continuing with their unnecessary disruptive ‘point of orders’, despite your pleas”.
This, Seibeb claims, proves that camera operators in collaboration with Katjavivi and Swapo’s chief whip have an agenda against LPM.
“There is a particular framing or narrative of creating a negative image about LPM that your service providers are advancing, which we think is done with your full consent, and Swapo party chief whip,” he claimed.