Military pleased with post-election calm

THE Namibia Defence Force (NDF) announced today that it was happy that peace and stability prevailed before, during and after the national elections that took place last week Wednesday.

In a media statement issued by the acting chief of NDF, air vice marshal Martin Pinehas, the NDF is “happy to announce with appreciation that the citizens of the Land of the Brave ensured that peace and stability prevailed before and during the polling process.”

The statement follows last week’s announcement, that the NDF had elevated the security level, after its observation of “dangerous insinuations” published on social media, ahead of last week’s election.

“After the announcement of [the] election results, the threats that were made before the elections continued to be shared on social media. NDF is particularly disturbed by declarations by some individuals that since their candidates did not win, they would resort to unconstitutional means such as assassination of the president, storming and burning of the State House, launching civil war, blocking of roads, and sabotaging of the government installations and national key points,” the statement reads.

It continues: “We are aware that the advocates of violence are planning to replicate the Orange Revolution and Arab Spring in Namibia. We have seen how such types of revolutions have devasted countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. We are also aware that such types of revolutions are always backed by foreign agencies, who are eager to capture the economies of the states concerned. We cannot, therefore, allow our country to descend into chaos due to self-serving individuals who do not have the security of our country at heart.”

The security level remains elevated until further notice, the air vice marshall assured.

While last week’s election was met with some hiccups—including faulty electronic voting machines (EVMs), mischievous voters faking pregnancies and disabilities, and the postponement of the announcement of the official results by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN)—election observers said the process was conducted peacefully.

According to reports carried by The Namibian, the African Union Electoral Observation Mission declared the Namibian elections to have been at par with international, regional and national standards. While,

the SADC Electoral Observation Mission announced that the country’s election process was safe, with no major security risks observed.

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