The Electoral Commission of Namibia chief electoral officer Theo Mujoro told Eagle FM on Saturday that the commission will not be able to run this year’s elections if the tribunal court rules in favour of manual paper ballots.
The Electoral Tribunal is expected to rule on the application made by independent presidential candidate Dr Panduleni Itula against the use of the electronic voting machines on Monday.
Dr Itula wants the tribunal to compel the ECN to either introduce an EVM that has a paper trail or deploy IT expert at every polling station to monitor the use of the machines. In the absence of the two, Dr Itula wants the ECN to revert to the use of manual paper ballots.
Mujoro told Eagle FM, however, the ECN will not be able to run the elections if the tribunal says the ECN should use manual paper ballots.
Asked what would happen to the election, Mujoro said: “I do not know.”
The issue of the EVMs has been spoken widely in the past few weeks especially after news broke out that there were four machines that are missing.
Initial responses from the ECN had indicated that the police were investigating the issue of the EVMs that went missing in 2017 after the former justice minister Sacky Shanghala had borrowed them for use during a Swapo elders event at Outapi.
Police inspector general Sebastian Ndeitunga later told Eagle FM that there was no case regarding EVMs that was reported with them. Ndeitunga also said that there was no case number on the EVMs.
Mujoro, however, said Saturday that there were administrative errors made when the machines were loaned out and that they initially thought that the police were working on the case.
He said their belief was informed by the fact that one component of the EVMs was taken to an Otjiwarongo police station when a motorist found it on the road.
Some opposition political party leaders feared that the missing EVMs would be used to rig the election, but Mujoro dismissed the fears saying that each machine has a serial number.
