Electoral Amendment Bill sails through

THE National Assembly has in principle accepted the Electoral Amendment Bill last week, but Regional and Local Government Minister Jerry Ekandjo announced in his extremely short reply that he would table an amendment next week to a specific clause.

‘This would entail that the costs of advertising for a new party in the Government Gazette would not be borne by that party but by Government,’ Ekandjo said. Opposition MPs had strongly objected to the costs during the debate, also yesterday afternoon.Tsudao Gurirab of CoD quoted from Article 17 of the Constitution which provides for freedom of association. The existing Act of 1992 provides for all concerns about new political parties and advertising a new party in the Government Gazette was unnecessary. He also called the Electoral Amendment Bill a ‘Mickey Mouse law.’ This infuriated the Swapo benchers and they demanded a withdrawal. Some helpful MPs proposed that this should be changed to Mini Mouse, but then Deputy Speaker Doreen Sioka insisted on the withdrawal of ‘Mickey Mouse’. Presidential Affairs Minister Albert Kawana explained that the provision to gazette new parties was that the list of names of supporters for a new party would also appear in the Gazette ‘for the public to see.’ Deputy Regional and Local Government Minister Kazenambo Kazenambo in his contribution pleaded to let voters vote on two days. The new amendment bill does not mention how many voting days should be granted.Nora Schimming-Chase of the CoD party, who like all other opposition MPs had over the years spoken out strongly against two voting days because for fear of possible election rigging overnight asked why two days were necessary. ‘Why can we not vote in one day? We signed the SADC guidelines for elections, which stipulate that voting should be done in one day. South Africans who are over 45 million people voted in one day three months ago,’ Schimming-Chase charged.Kazenambo said Namibia was underdeveloped with regard to infrastructure and many rural people had inadequate access to good roads and the same applied to farm labourers working on remote farms. Arnold Tjihuiko noted that Namibia should abide by treaties and agreements it signed and ratified like the SADC guidelines for elections.Both Kazenambo and Deputy Justice Ministers Utoni Nujoma were quick to say implementation of such agreements needed time. ‘The opposition parties do not want to afford Swapo members to vote over two days,’ Kazenambo shouted among applause and cheering from the Swapo benches.The CoD Member further criticised that political parties only received the voters’ roll a few days before a national election in the past and this should change so that the roll could be scrutinised and wrong names removed.’De Waal, virtually every year we complained about receiving the voters roll late and that we could not get names removed, but in vain. Last year when it came to the Omuthiya municipal elections, Swapo complained about the voters’ roll and they were helped.’Rosalia Nghidinwa said there were thousands of identity documents (IDs) waiting at the offices of her Ministry to be collected by citizens. ‘That is sabotage, as this means that these people cannot vote, because they don’t have their IDs,’ DTA Vice President Philemon Moongo charged, causing amusement in the House.