By: Kelvin Chiringa
APP president Ignatius Shixwameni said the Electoral Commission of Namibia should be ashamed of itself for carrying out a sham election that has been set aside by the electoral court.
The ECN declared the Swapo candidate, Michael Kampota and not APP’s Daniel Djami, the winner of the Ndonga Linena constituency in Kavango East during the 2020 regional council elections.
The APP disputed the results and went to the electoral court resulting in the setting aside of the outcome on Monday.
The electoral court has now issued an order to the effect that the ECN must recount the votes.
The ECN now has 10 days given to it by the order of the court to recount the election results and declare a winner, a move that may unsettle the Swapo party.
The election results have thus been set aside, a victory for the APP which had brought the case to court and fought it out for almost a year now.
Shixwameni has said this is a victory not for his party but the country at large, and accused the ECN of having political party affiliates that have “compromised the government”.
“The ECN has been cheating people of their results. A full bench of high court judges has ruled in favour of our petition to the high court. The Electoral Commission must be deeply ashamed that they can mess up such a situation.
“We are definitely about 12 months since the last elections but they knew that they cheated. They knew and they know in their minds that something went wrong with Ndonga Linena. That our candidate won. How do you explain the whole thing that they declared both nationally and internationally that Kampota (Swapo) won and there were 57 spoilt ballot papers which we disputed?” He asked.
With the electoral victory thus adding more wind to the sails of his criticism of the vote counting body, Shixwameni has said it is high time the ECN is investigated.
He was the first lawmaker to stand up against a slate of commissioners that was lined up before the House to recommend for appointment, asking candidates to disaffiliate from their political parties foremost.
In July this year, the court made an order that the ECN hand over rejected Kavango East election ballots to the APP, an order issued by judges Nate Ndauendapo, Boas Usiku and Hannelie Prinsloo.
The ballot papers should be made available to the party within three weeks, the court also stated.
“Their senior officials are members of party branches and all these kinds of things which is wrong. Members of the management cadre of government, you can have a political party membership, there is nothing wrong with it, but for you to be the advocate again of the other party in the country is wrong,” he said.
Meanwhile the ECN’s manager for communications Lina Ndengu as well as the commission’s Chief Executive Officer, Theo Mujoro could not pick up their phones for a comment on the issue.
