By: Andrew Kathindi
All People’s Party (APP) Secretary-General Vincent Kanyetu has confirmed that the party is unsatisfied with the Ndonga Linena Constituency Regional Council election recount last month and will be heading back to the electoral court for recourse.
The Electoral court in September nullified the Ndonga Linena election results and ordered for a recount.
Swapo emerged victorious following the recount and ended up garnering even more votes than they had previously gained in 2020.
“We have a number of issues that made us not to be satisfied. We have all seen the first announcement of the results by the ECN, how the figures stood. The rejected ballot papers were 57 the first time. Now the rejected ballot papers are 20. The figures that the two political parties got rose from 1061 to 1074, and Swapo’s candidate they announced to be the winner rose from 1073 to 1094. We have a number of questions that we are taking back to court, which we will not disclose right now.”
According to Kanyetu, the recount was haphazardly done.
“They only concentrated on tallying and counting the numbers. We have a number of questions.”
“I asked him (Mujoro) a question in the hall that we were during the counting if he can bring all the documents that had a record of everything, the books, how much was used, not used, the vote cast and the vote rejected, all the documentation. He told me he needed to consult his legal advisers and then ran away from there. After that, he just came back to announce.”
Kanyetu accused ECN of not wanting to engage with APP on a number of issues and only wanted to be seen as complying with the court order.
The electoral court ordered the recount after a number of votes discounted during the 2020 elections were deemed valid after the ballot boxes were unsealed for inspection.
The APP was confident before the recount stating that the votes that had been disqualified were in their favour.
ECN Chief electoral officer stated that as the electoral commission was concerned, Ndonga Linena was a closed chapter. “The fact of the matter is that we fulfilled the court order. APP monitored the process from A to Z. As far as we’re concerned, Ndonga Linena is over. Case closed.”
According to Mujoro, ECN’s current focus is on elections in the Ncamagoro Constituency in Kavango West. There is a current vacancy resulting from the councillor’s passing on for Ncamagoro constituency, Johannes Sikondo.
