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Opposition demands poll audit
OPPOSITION parties who are dissatisfied with the conduct of Namibia’s National Assembly and presidential elections at the end of last month announced yesterday that they have launched a case in the High Court to ask for a “thorough audit” of the election results.
Most of the political parties that were trounced by Swapo in the elections on November 27 and 28 already announced on December 6 that they would not accept the result of the elections, which they claimed were conducted in contravention of the Electoral Act.
Addressing a media briefing in Windhoek with representatives of other opposition parties yesterday, the administrative director of the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), Libolly Haufiku, repeated that the parties had “jointly rejected the outcome of the recently held elections due to the discovery of very serious irregularities which we felt could not be left unchallenged”.
He said the parties – RDP, All Peoples’ Party, Congress of Democrats (CoD), DTA, Republican Party (RP), Nudo, UDF, NDMC, DPN and NDP – yesterday launched an application in the High Court for a “thorough audit” of the election results.
According to CoD Secretary General Tsudao Gurirab the case is set to be heard in the High Court on Friday.
RP leader Henk Mudge, who also attended the media briefing, said the first step for the parties pursuing the court application would be to have an audit of election material done. If irregularities are found, a second application could be launched to have the election results set aside, he said.
“Not if, but when; we know they are going to be discovered,” Haufiku said about the possibility of irregularities being found. He said an auditing firm would assist in having the election material audited. He also asked people to make financial contributions to the RDP’s bank account to help pay for the legal action being taken.
Haufiku did not want to go into detail when he was asked what alleged irregularities the parties were referring to.
Gurirab however mentioned the changing voters’ rolls that were provided by the Electoral Commission of Namibia before the election as an example.
From October up to two days before the start of the elections the ECN released no fewer than four different voters’ rolls. The number of registered voters on these rolls varied between 822 344 and 1,3 million, with the lowest number on the last voters’ register that was released.
The election results were announced on the evening of December 5, a week after polling stations had been closed.
According to the official results announced by the ECN, Swapo scored an overwhelming victory against its rivals, winning 602 580 votes, or 75,27 per cent of the 800 567 valid votes that were counted. Swapo was awarded 54 seats in the 72-seat National Assembly – one less than the number of seats the ruling party had in the NA since the 1999 elections.
The RDP emerged as the second largest party, with 90 556 votes, or 11,31 per cent of the valid votes counted, giving it eight seats in the NA.
According to the Electoral Act, an application challenging the outcome of an election has to be filed with the High Court within 30 days after the election result had been declared.
This would give the opposition parties up to January 4 to file a case in which they could ask for the election results to be set aside.
History appears to be repeating itself with the court application that the parties announced yesterday.
After the 2004 National Assembly and presidential elections, the CoD and RP also sued the ECN, first asking the High Court to order the ECN to give them access to election materials that they wanted to use to prepare an election petition in which they questioned the legality of the elections.
The two parties later filed a case in which they asked the High Court to declare the 2004 elections null and void, alternatively to set aside the election results and order a recount of votes.
Five years ago today, on December 16 2004, High Court Judge Elton Hoff ordered that the ECN had to give the CoD and RP access to election materials like ballot boxes, ballot papers and other documents related to the elections.
In the main election challenge that the two parties filed after that, three judges of the High Court set aside the election results on March 10 2005 and ordered a recount of votes.
The recount ended up not changing anything with the allocation of seats in the National Assembly.
