Electoral commissioners told to resign

Political parties and analysts are calling on the commissioners of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) to resign after a chaotic election on Wednesday.

Voting has been marred by a lack of ballot papers, the late opening of polling stations and long queues.
In some cases voters queued for as long as 12 hours.

Due to these irregularities, many Namibians were deprived of the opportunity to exercise their democratic right to vote.

These events have caused outrage among the public, political parties and analysts.

“This is the worst pre- and post-election process in the history of post-apartheid Namibia,” political analyst Rui Tyitende says.

“Considering the widespread chaos across the polling stations, one can only deduce that this was either choreographed chaos or gross incompetence, or a combination of both,” he says.

“The ECN leadership informed the public that they were ready for the elections, but the evidence suggests otherwise. It appears they prepared everything this week, or outsourced this entire process to the government of Zimbabwe or North Korea.

“If they have any shred of integrity, they should resign immediately and issue a public apology for violating the constitutional rights of so many Namibians who were unable to vote.

“If they do not resign, they should be fired,” Tyitende says.

ECN regional electoral officer Elizabeth Visagie yesterday said she was unaware of the allegations.

“Don’t ask me those things. For that one, just call the head office. I did not hear of any allegations,” she said.

‘INSULTING DEMOCRACY’

According to Independent Patriots for Change spokesperson Imms Nashinge, the ECN has insulted democracy and the intelligence of all Namibians.

“We don’t know if these guys were prepared, or all was just deliberately done to frustrate a good number of Namibians who turned up. Namibians who truly love this country and democracy should be prepared that this should not be accepted,” he said.

This sentiment was echoed by political analyst Ndumba Kamwanyah.

“They failed the Namibian people, despite all the assurances that they are ready,” he says.

“Red flags were there from the printing of the ballot papers, including their choice of a procurement process.

“They must explain how the polling stations fell short with ballot papers. What was the problem?
“This has very serious consequences for our democracy and our electoral process in terms of credibility. It is damaging our [democratic] process.

“I agree they should resign, because they have let down our country and our democracy . . . If the damage is too huge or uncontrollable, then a rerun must take place if possible.”

Landless People’s Movement spokesperson Lifalaza Shimataa yesterday said the election process has been compromised since the ECN hand-picked an election ballot paper printer without consulting political parties.

“Last year, they [the ECN] allowed Swapo to use their electronic voting machines, and then they got lost. Then there was an instance of laptops of theirs that were unaccounted for.

“During the by-elections, they were issuing new voter’s cards without speaking to the political parties and other stakeholders. Moving into this year, we had the procurement issue,” he said.

He said the ECN promised a transparent procurement process which they failed to deliver.

“And then, building onto that, we have the debacle of yesterday. It is a sad day for our democracy altogether. All of this combined is why we believe the ECN has failed in ensuring that this election is free and fair,” he said.

Simataa said the commission lacked accountability on key issues.

“The top leadership should resign. They seem to be consistently failing. And consistently, even with this failure, there is no transparency or accountability,” he said.

The commissioners contacted did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.

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