Namibia may soon have a vice-president, along with a law that will enable the president to call for a referendum if he or she doesn’t want to sign a piece of legislation passed by parliament.
These are among the sweeping changes being worked on by the Law Reform Development Commission (LRDC), which also includes legislation to transfer power between presidents and their successors, enforcing stricter controls around parliamentary funding of political parties and shifting the appointing power of electoral commissioners from the president to parliament.
Other proposals touch on reducing some of the functions of the prime minister, limiting the number of candidates in a presidential runoff to two, as well as giving regional governors more authority to exercise executive power.
All these suggested amendments form part of the Electoral Matters Bill, the Namibian Constitution Amendment Bill and the President Transition Bill.
“One of the things I put in there as a proposal is the Office of the Vice-President of the Republic of Namibia,” LRDC Chairperson Sacky Shanghala told Namibian Sun this week.
According to Shanghala, one of the functions of the vice-president will be to call an election within 90 days in the event that any poll electing a president is disputed.
“If any elections are challenged you do not have a president, prime minister or Cabinet. If a president commits (or is accused of committing) electoral fraud before being sworn in, there will be a constitutional vacuum.”
Shanghala believes the creation of a vice-president position will close this gap, as the individual will be expected to act as Head of State until such a time that the electoral challenge is sorted out…
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