Benjamin Ulenga (born Benjamin Uulenga Uulenga on June 22, 1952Profile of Ulenga on Namibian Parliament website
) is a

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

n politician. In the 1990s, he served under the

SWAPO The South West Africa People's Organisation (, SWAPO; af, Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volks Organisasie, SWAVO; german: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former ind ...

government as a deputy minister and as an ambassador, but he left SWAPO in 1998 and founded an opposition party, the

Congress of Democrats The Congress of Democrats (CoD) is a Namibian opposition party without representation in the National Assembly and led by Ben Ulenga. It was established in 1999, prior to that year's general elections, and started off with a number of notabl ...

(CoD), in 1999. He was a member of the

National Assembly of Namibia The National Assembly is the lower chamber of Namibia's bicameral Parliament. Its laws must be approved by the National Council, the upper house. Since 2014, it has a total of 104 members. 96 members are directly elected through a system of close ...

from 2000 to 2015 and led the CoD until 2015.

Life and career

Ulenga, born in Ontanga,

Oshana Region Oshana is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia, its capital is Oshakati. The towns of Oshakati, Ongwediva and Ondangwa, all situated with this region, form an urban cluster with the second largest population concentration in Namibia after the ...

, played an influential role in the independence struggle of Namibia against

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

rule. He joined the

People's Liberation Army of Namibia The People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) was the military wing of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO). It fought against the South African Defence Force (SADF) and South West African Territorial Force (SWATF) during the Sout ...

in 1974 but was later captured after being wounded in combat and sentenced to 15 years in prison, which he spent on

Robben Island Robben Island ( af, Robbeneiland) is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa. It takes its name from the Dutch word for seals (''robben''), hence the Dutch/Afrik ...

. He was released in 1985. At that time he met

Rosa Namises Visolela Rosalinda "Rosa" Namises (born 1958), nicknamed the " Rosa Luxemburg of Namibia", is a Namibian politician, human-rights activist and chief of a faction of the ǀKhomanin, a clan of the Damara people. She is a former member of Parlia ...

. They had two children together before separating in 1988. Immediately prior to independence, he was a

member of the Constituent Assembly, which was in place from November 1989 to March 1990. After independence, he was a SWAPO member of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

from 1990 to 1996, and he was Deputy Minister of Wildlife, Conservation and Tourism from 1991 to 1995 before becoming Deputy Minister of Regional and Local Government and Housing in 1995. He was later appointed as Namibia's High Commissioner to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, but in August 1998 he resigned from that post to protest plans to amend the constitution so that President

Sam Nujoma Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma, (; born 12 May 1929) is a Namibian revolutionary, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served three terms as the first President of Namibia, from 1990 to 2005. Nujoma was a founding member and the first ...

could run for a third term; in addition, he expressed dissatisfaction with Namibia's military presence in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

during that country's

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. He initially said that he would remain a member of SWAPO, but he subsequently left SWAPO and founded the opposition CoD in March 1999. He was the CoD candidate in the 1999 presidential election, placing second behind Nujoma and receiving 10.5% of the vote. He was also elected to the National Assembly as a CoD candidate in the 1999 parliamentary election. At a CoD congress, Ulenga was re-elected as President of the CoD on August 1, 2004; he was also chosen as the party's candidate for the November 2004 presidential election. In this election, he placed second with 7.28% of the vote, far behind SWAPO candidate

Hifikepunye Pohamba Hifikepunye Lucas Pohamba (born 18 August 1936) is a Namibian politician who served as the second president of Namibia from 21 March 2005 to 21 March 2015. He won the 2004 presidential election overwhelmingly as the candidate of SWAPO, and was ...

. In the concurrent 2004 parliamentary election, he was re-elected to the National Assembly. At an extraordinary party congress held in

Keetmanshoop Keetmanshoop is a city in the ǁKaras Region of southern Namibia, lying on the Trans-Namib Railway from Windhoek to Upington in South Africa. It is named after Johann Keetman, a German industrialist and benefactor of the city. History Befo ...

in May 2008,Brigitte Weidlich
"CoD's Ben Ulenga to sue 'rebel' MPs"
''The Namibian'', December 21, 2007.Kuvee Kangueehi

''New Era'', July 21, 2008. Ulenga was re-elected as CoD President; he defeated

Ignatius Shixwameni Ignatius Nkotongo Shixwameni (4 September 1966 – 10 November 2021) was a Namibian politician. He was the leader of Namibia's All People's Party. Life Shixwameni was born in Shambyu, the traditional kingdom in the Kavango Region, and he earne ...

by 14 votes, and Shixwameni, rejecting the outcome, left the congress in protest along with about half of the delegates. Shixwameni alleged rigging and claimed that his CoD faction represented the majority of the party; his faction went to the High Court to press these claims. In July 2008, the High Court ruled in favor of the Shixwameni faction, nullifying the May 2007 congress. Ulenga accepted the decision. In the 2009 general election, Ulenga's support dropped significantly and he received 5,812 votes (0.72%), which placed him in 9th place out of 12 candidates for President. This represented more than 50,000 fewer votes than he had received when he finished second to Pohamba in the 2004 campaign. Similarly, the CoD lost four of five members of the National Assembly. Ulenga, however, was re-elected. There are speculations that Ulenga will rejoin

in 2017, however, nothing official has been announced yet.

References

External links

Interview with Ben Ulenga by Tor Sellström within the project Nordic Documentation on the Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa
– dated 16 March 1995. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ulenga, Ben 1952 births Living people People from Oshana Region Ovambo people SWAPO politicians Congress of Democrats politicians Government ministers of Namibia Members of the National Assembly (Namibia) People's Liberation Army of Namibia personnel High Commissioners of Namibia to the United Kingdom South West African anti-apartheid activists Inmates of Robben Island Candidates for President of Namibia