Put The ECN Under Quarantine

THE Electoral Commission of Namibia is starting the year 2010 in the same manner in which it finished the past year – IN VERY BAD SHAPE.

If last year was supposed to be a defining moment for our electoral democracy, it does appear that we have taken a giant step backwards with the majority of opposition parties having rejected the final outcome of a process overseen by the ECN.In a column after the release of the final results and the ensuing problems, I argued that heads had to roll at the ECN. And if this was not enough, problems, albeit of a different nature, still persist at the ECN with the latest being the de facto suspension of the Director of the ECN, Moses Ndjarakana.If at all it is true that the Director of the ECN was not on duty on December 24 2009 when the High Court ordered that material was to be handed over to the political parties that contested the final results, we ought to be worried about the state of the ECN as an institution.In part, we should seriously ask ourselves if Ndjarakana is indeed the right person to lead such a crucial institution whose aim is to consolidate our democratic process.Perhaps we may conclude that he is not fully committed to leading such a lofty institution at a time when his leadership is most needed. Ordinarily, Namibians would have assumed or rightly expected that the Director of the ECN, including all the commissioners, would be the first people to arrive at court to hear the verdict and act accordingly.However, it does appear that those in leadership at the ECN were casual about the ongoing legal process and spent their time on holiday.Sadly, it does suggest that there was gross negligence on the part of the Commission and this negligence is what led to the election material being delivered to the political parties way beyond the deadline set by the court.While I share the sentiments and importantly the reasons for the forced leave of Ndjarakana by the Chairman of the ECN, the problems at the ECN are much bigger than the mere absence of the accounting officer at a time when most Namibians expected him to be at the office attending to these urgent matters.If the matter of Ndjarakana being on holiday at such a crucial time was an isolated incident, such a column may not have been necessary.Yet, the manner in which the Chairman deals with the public and stakeholders also point to a deeper rot in the manner in which the ECN conducts its affairs.The Chairperson of the ECN has a duty to inform the public about the state of the ECN.We have the right to know if the Director is on forced leave or not, including the reasons for such actions.But the lack of transparency when dealing with the public is a worrying trend for an institution whose mandate is exactly that of creating public confidence in its mandate and role in the democratic process.If the Chairman of the ECN chooses to keep Namibians in the dark ages about the status of the Director, we can only imagine what else the ECN may choose to withhold from the public. In that case, Namibians ought not to be surprised when the ECN disrespects without explanations provisions of the electoral act.The point deserving emphasis is that there seems to be a crisis of leadership at the ECN.It is in the press for all the wrong reasons.Things have reached a tipping point and it begs the question as to whether Namibians should accept such a situation as business as usual or unusual. We should accept that there are systemic problems at the ECN and it would be naïve for us to expect such problems to be solved through an individual being put on forced leave.I am not too sure if any meaningful action would be taken to deal with these systemic problems given the nature and pace at which our country acts.We would perhaps wait for the ECN to collapse completely before we start to act.But, the cost would be too high for us to adopt a wait and see attitude with regard to an institution that is so central to the stability of our democratic system and importantly our state.* Alfredo Tjiurimo Hengari is a PhD fellow in political science at the University of Paris- Panthéon Sorbonne, France.