Poll ban heads to court

THE National Society for Human Rights is poised to approach the High Court for an urgent interdict forcing the Electoral Commission of Namibia to stop banning them as election observers.

NSHR Executive Director Phil ya Nangoloh said last night that their lawyers had written to the ECN and given them until end of business yesterday to withdraw the decision to bar NSHR observers.ECN Deputy Director of Operations Theo Mujoro said they had not seen the NSHR letter from lawyers Koep and Partners.By late yesterday it appeared that neither side was prepared back down and that the matter was set to be ironed out in court.MISTAKES AND ACCURACYThe bitter row started after the NSHR claimed that many people had registered as voters twice and that the voters’ roll was a shambles, as it contained the names of many deceased people.The ECN hit back by claiming that the NSHR had lied to the media about double registration, but refused to respond to Ya Nangoloh’s claims in detail.On Sunday the ECN had said that some information about two constituencies was copied twice on the voters’ roll CD-ROM sent to the political parties, while one was omitted by mistake.The ECN maintains that the printed version of the voters’ register that was gazetted on November 9 ‘remains absolutely accurate and correct’.The NSHR displayed documents to the media on Tuesday showing different voter registration numbers of some registered individuals.They were in a ‘dossier’ thicker than a telephone directory and divided into different regions.’The ECN has repeatedly lied to the general public that it is doing its best to ensure a free and fair election in which registered voters will be allowed to vote only once and that a number of mechanisms have been put in place to prevent voters from voting twice,’ Ya Nangoloh charged.The ECN claimed the human rights organisation had defamed the people whose names it publicised as having registered twice.’This action has duly compromised your integrity and credibility as an election observer,’ ECN Chairperson Victor Tonchi wrote in a letter to the NSHR.Yesterday afternoon all indications were that the matter would end up in court.Ya Nangoloh said their lawyers were finalising everything before approaching the High Court.Although the case will not, in all likelihood, stop the elections from going ahead tomorrow, the banning of the NSHR could be seen in some circles of civil society as denying them the right to observe the elections and thus place a question mark on the transparency aspect.