SPYL borrowed ballot boxes

THE six ballot boxes belonging to the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) that were found at the Windhoek Central Police station recently were opened on Friday in the presence of the media and two political parties.

They contained voting material of the ruling Swapo Party Youth League. Two ECN officials also witnessed the cutting of the seals, which were all intact, and the examination of the papers inside.The Namibian last week quoted the Police as saying they had heard from Swapo that the party’s Elders’ Council had borrowed the six ballot boxes from the ECN in 2006 for its congress and had requested Police to store them afterwards, but had never fetched them.The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) obtained a tip-off about the boxes in the Police storeroom, ‘but not from the Police’, its Executive Director Phil ya Nangoloh said on Friday at the Police station.Deputy Commissioner Hophni Hamufungu, who heads the Police Public Relations Division, revealed on Friday that on May 22 the NSHR had sent a letter to the Police enquiring about the ECN ballot boxes and if it was true that there were ‘sinister plans’ to remove them.A copy of the letter was also sent to the ECN.’In view of the allegations in the NSHR’s letter and the attendant inaccuracies, exaggeration, distortions and misrepresentations of facts therein, Police established that the six boxes were brought to us for safekeeping after the Swapo Youth League held its congress in August 2007 and the boxes were borrowed from the ECN and used for the election of the league’s leadership,’ Hamufungu said.’There was no storage space at the Swapo headquarters then.’To avoid any possible dispute, Swapo apparently stores internal election results for a longer period, he added.’A party employee who was responsible for the storage got employment elsewhere and the boxes remained at the Police station. Mindful of the need for transparency seen to exist, all relevant parties agreed to open the boxes,’ Hamufungu added. The Police had previously been requested several times to safely store materials for gatherings and local, regional and national elections.A senior ECN official, Ananias Elago, declined to comment when asked whether the ECN kept detailed lists of its ballot boxes, which are all numbered.Elago, who arrived 30 minutes late, claimed he was unfamiliar with the press statement on the mystery ballot boxes, which Hamufungu had made. Prodded to respond on whether the ECN kept a list of boxes it lent to organisations and if so, why it did not try and get its boxes back, Elago said: ‘I prefer not to comment.’Representatives of Swapo and the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) attended the opening of the ballot boxes.brigitte@namibian.com.na