Martin Endjala
The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) has assured the public and all political parties that the governing Swapo Party will not interfere with the counting of votes at polling stations in November.
Paulus Mbangu, a member of the National Council, expressed concern about remarks made by Swapo’s secretary general Sophia Shaningwa at the party manifesto launch last weekend.
“The SG cannot be the spokesperson of the ECN. Her remarks sound like she is giving orders to ECN, which is not good in democracy. Who gave the party SG the power to speak on the ECN’s behalf? Because announcements of this sort fall under ECN,” said Mbangu.
At the launch, Shaningwa announced that ECN had informed the party that there would be no regional verification centres like in the past.
“That simply means that the results from the polling stations countrywide will be the results that will be maintained to be truthful and transparent as voted for by voters. I think this information is very important that all of us who will be representing the Swapo party at the poll tallying sessions must make sure that as the ECN presiding officer signs off, you should make sure that you copy the results to make sure you also report the same,” she said.
She said the Swapo party agents must send the verified results that are signed off to the party’s headquarters so that it can also tally such votes.
De Wet Siluka, the ECN’s spokesperson, explained that all political party agents at the polling stations would not take part in the counting, but would only act as observers.
He gave the assurance to the Swapo party that, like all other political parties, they would have the right to observe elections at polling stations, but that that would be the extent of their rights.
He said no one would be allowed to tamper with any election results.
“They are not allowed to interfere with any process. They are only there to observe and see if there is any objection or anything they are not satisfied with. We will deploy occurrence books to enable people who have complaints to register them in the book,” he explained.
In response to Shaningwa’s remarks, Siluka explained that she is not wrong to say that their party agent must tally the elections because it is allowed by law.
He said that political parties have the right to send their agents to polling stations to watch the process.
Siluka further explained that the agents can rely on their tallies only after the polling officials have counted the results and the presiding officer announces them.
“After votes are counted at polling stations, both the presiding officer and the political party agent are supposed to sign as proof that indeed it is a true reflection of the votes that were counted and observed, and those results are posted for public display and for everyone at that polling station,” he said.