IPC claims Mbumba’s election voting extension was unlawful

The Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) is claiming that president Nangolo Mbumba’s extension of voting in Namibia’s presidential and National Assembly elections two weeks ago was unlawful.

Mbumba further should not have decided at which polling stations the extended elections took place, IPC national general secretary Christine !Auchamus is alleging in a sworn statement filed at the Electoral Court on Monday.

The statement forms part of documents filed at the court in an application by the IPC to be given access to election materials that it wants to inspect to decide if it will pursue a legal challenge of the conduct of the elections.

The party is asking the Electoral Court, which is part of the High Court, to allow it to open and inspect election materials connected to the National Assembly election two weeks ago, or to permit the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) to give it access to the election materials.

The IPC wants to get information about the total number of votes cast in the National Assembly election at each polling station, the total number of spoilt ballots recorded at each polling station, the total number of tendered votes and the total number of votes counted at each polling station.

In her affidavit, !Auchamus claims: “There were clearly irregularities in the election.

The IPC also seeks the information in order, inter alia, to determine the extent of the irregularities.

That is its right. It also enables the IPC to consider whether to launch proceedings concerning the validity of the elections.”

!Auchamus claims Mbumba’s proclamation extending voting in the elections, which initially was to take place only on 27 November, was unlawful.

Mbumba extended the voting from 21h00 on 27 November, when polling stations closed, to 21h00 on 30 November in a proclamation published on 28 November, in effect extending voting on 29 and 30 November.

The president also announced that voting was extended only at specified polling stations in the Kunene, Oshana and Oshikoto regions and at one polling station in Windhoek.

In terms of the Electoral Act, polling stations are established by the ECN, and the ECN’s chief electoral officer publishes information about the polling stations after they have been established, !Auchamus says.

The polling stations where the extended elections took place were not established or published by the ECN in terms of the Electoral Act, according to !Auchamus.

She also complains in her affidavit that Mbumba did not declare the days on which the elections were extended as public holidays, and that this limited eligible voters’ right to vote.

“Declaring a public holiday for the purpose of an election must logically be intended to facilitate people’s exercise of their constitutional right to vote,” !Auchamus says.

She also says in her affidavit: “It is common knowledge in Namibia that there are pervasive complaints about the conduct of the recent presidential and National Assembly elections. Unknown numbers of people did not get to vote on 27 November, and when it was extended there was no public holiday.”

However, !Auchamus also alleges that the Electoral Act does not allow Mbumba to extend voting in the way that he did.

The act says a polling day must be a day not less than 15 days and not more than 20 days after the day on which a proclamation announcing the polling day is published in the Government Gazette.

Mbumba’s proclamation of 27 November as polling day was published in the Government Gazette on 26 September.

!Auchamus alleges that Mbumba’s decision to amend the initial proclamation on 28 November, to extend voting to 21h00 on 30 November, was unlawful.

Polling stations closed at 21h00 on 27 November, and voting could not on the next day be extended, she says: “An extension after the fact amounts to no extension at all.”

The IPC’s application is scheduled to be heard in the Electoral Court on Friday.

The ECN announced last week that the IPC won 20 seats in the National Assembly in the election two weeks ago, which would make the party the official opposition in the assembly.

Swapo won 51 of the 96 elected seats in the National Assembly – 12 seats fewer than the number of seats the ruling party won in the 2019 election.