LPM says ballot printing process was flawed

The Landless People’s Movement (LPM) has raised concerns over the ballot printing process for the upcoming elections, alleging procedural flaws.

Ivan Skrywer, representing LPM at the ballot observation mission in South Africa, recently said the process was conducted without full transparency.

“According to procedure, parties must place their seals on the ballot boxes or any instrument used to store the ballot papers. However, to our knowledge, we were not informed that the processes of binding, packaging and signing off were done covertly over the weekend,” Skrywer says.

This statement follows the Electoral Commission of Namibia’s (ECN) announcement on Sunday that the production of ballot papers for Namibia’s upcoming elections is complete.

“We are therefore unable to place our party seal on any of the ECN documents or instruments. Doing so would amount to validating a process we did not fully verify. The entire observation process in South Africa was flawed, and serious concerns remain about the integrity of the ballot paper printing and production,” Skrywer adds.

ECN spokesperson De Wet Siluka said on Sunday that the production process for the ballot papers for the November 2024 presidential and National Assembly elections had been successfully completed.

“This includes verification, binding, packaging and sign-off by authorised representatives of the presidential candidates,” he said.

The ECN has yet to respond to the latest claims made by LPM.