Fears over voters’ roll

QUESTIONS continue to haunt the final voters’ roll made available to political parties on Saturday and one opposition party has already sent a letter to the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) demanding some explanations.

The nation still is in the dark about the exact number of voters on the roll, because the ECN has so far not published a proper summary with figures of the 13 regions and the final total.DUPLICATIONSScrutiny of each of the 107 constituency lists on the CD-ROM obtained by The Namibian found that the Kongola constituency of the Caprivi Region – with its 4 208 voters – appears on the roll twice.The Anamulenge constituency, with 7 674 voters, has also been duplicated. Anamulenge was entered under its original constituency number (069) and again under constituency number 071.One constituency (040) in the Khomas Region is missing on the CD-ROM.SPELLING ERRORSIt was also discovered that the names of the Gibeon and Onyaanya constituencies were spelt wrongly on the roll, which might have legal consequences. Gibeon was spelt as ‘Gideon’ and Onyaanya as ‘Onyaaya’.’It could be queried from a legal point of view if people registered there can vote because this might be regarded as two different places, because the names of the two towns were spelt wrongly,’ a lawyer told The Namibian upon inquiry.The Namibian added up the figures of each constituency and omitted the double entries for Kabbe and Anamulenge. Altogether 1 144 878 voters are on the roll as counted by The Namibian.ECN Commissioner Shafimana Ueitele told The Namibian on request yesterday that he ‘remembered’ the final figure as being around 1,18 million voters. Asked why the printed summary accompanying the CD-ROM issued to the parties on Saturday gave the final figure as only 961 175 voters, he said the summary had been issued to the political parties without the authorisation of the ECN.Just after the supplementary voter registration in September, ECN Chairman Victor Tonchi said the roll had grown to 1,3 million voters, only to correct this a little later to a vague figure of 1,16 million.The ECN has failed to provide a proper printed summary of the final voter’s roll.’This is worrying,’ said Steve Bezuidenhout, vice president of the RDP party. ‘We sent a letter to the ECN to obtain answers and we want the final figures,’ he told The Namibian yesterday. According to The Namibian’s calculations, the regional breakdown of registered voters is as follows:Caprivi 34 290Erongo 92 171Hardap 45 590Karas 52 963Kavango 118 889Khomas 187 129Kunene 47 849Ohangwena 126 155Omaheke 44 257Omusati 114 618Oshana 104 548Oshikoto 93 669Otjozondjupa 82 750