The Electoral Commission of Namibia IT expert Milton Louw Shaanika old Eagle FM Tuesday that someone was trying to steal president Hage Geingob’s votes.
Shaanika who had been accused of stealing five laptops from the ECN and selling them to Cash Converters.
Although Shaanika admitted that he indeed took the laptops, he denied that he wanted to sell them.
According to Shaanika, he was not comfortable with the idea that someone was trying to steal Geingob’s vote to force a rerun.
Shaanika’s comments came after the chief electoral officer Theo Mujoro had accused him of stealing the five laptops and that a case had been opened with the police.
When Eagle FM spoke to Shaanika, some hours later, he had not been arrested. Shaanika said it’s not the ECN CEO or the ECN commissioners who changed the election results, but somebody from somewhere did it.
He said that the votes were stolen right across all the constituencies and polling stations.
Asked who had stolen the votes, Shaanika said that he did not know but that he raised a flag at 06h00.
“I am an honest person. I do not like dishonesty. I will tell the truth even it means the police must put me in safekeeping just like my friend Sacky (Shanghala) and them. Regardless that I might lose my job and people may call me any names they want,” said Shaanika.
He further said that he informed the print media and the police that somebody had hacked into the system.
Pressed to say who had stolen the vote, Shaanika said he did not know but that it was an external interference and that they used technology against us, whoever they are.
He added that whoever hacked into the system was outside his pay grade and that they were messing with the two-thirds majority.
“The chief electoral officer allowed me to look. It does not change the result. The chief executive officer allowed me to look into the matter and I reported it to him,” Shaanika said.
The chief electoral officer, Shaanika said, was aware of it and he asked me if changes the result and I said it does not.
According to Shaanika, if you get away with things, it means other people are complicity.
PDM leader McHenry Venaani says that he knew there was something wrong with the 2019 election results and that he warned ECN staff, including Shaanika that one of them would go to jail.
Venaani said this when he was responding to Eagle FM after Shaanika had told the radio station that somebody tried to steal Geingob’s vote to force a re-run.
Shaanika, who is being accused of stealing five laptops and trying to sell them to Cash Converters, said that someone working outside the ECN hacked into the system.
According to Shaanika, that person is not the chief electoral officer Theo Mujoro or any of the commissioners.
The theft of the vote, Shaanika said, was meant to enforce a re-run after failure for a clear winner.
Venaani, however, said that this was not the first time that Shaanika had said something to that effect.
During the vote counting, Venaani said, Shaanika told him and his members that the PDM had won a lot of seats and that it had disturbed the system.
The PDM leader told Eagle FM that he then told Shaanika that one of them would end up in jail.
Mujoro, who asked for the recording of Shaanika’s interview, said he could not comment and would rather issue a press statement.
Geingob’s press secretary Alfredo Hengari also said he could not comment when approached on Tuesday.
Cash Converters told The Sun newspaper, however, that Shaanika brought five laptop s before the 27 Nov. elections and that he came back to redeem them.
