ECN are ghosts – Kambala

The Affirmative Repositioning’s George Kambala has called out the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) on their failure to communicate to political parties since last Thursday, referring to them as “ghosts”.

Speaking at the announcement of the general elections results, Kambala bemoaned the lack of communication between the ECN and the Political Party Liaison Committee (PLC), stating that they expected to have a session with the commission before results started trickling in.

“Before or after results are made available to the public, one would have wanted the ECN to speak to the PLC but we haven’t had any discussions. Since Thursday, we have tried by all means to engage the ECN officials and the commissioners themselves,” he told The Namibian on Tuesday.

Political parties were scheduled to have a meeting with the commission on Thursday to be briefed on the status quo of the elections after reports of insufficient ballot papers and malfunctioning machines at various polling stations.

On the day, opposition political parties alleged the ECN had met ruling party Swapo’ secretary general, Sophia Shaningwa, without the other parties present.

The commission was then denied access to a meeting hosted by opposition political parties, where they agreed on a pact to declare the elections null and void.

“Seems that they are ghosts. They appear to come and make an announcement and once they announce they disappear into thin air. It questions their integrity and also the issue of accountability,” Kambala added.

He further told The Namibian that the commission need to hold themselves to a higher standard.

“They, as custodians of our electoral process, are accountable to the electorates. That’s the PLC who are stakeholders and also the media, as well as the citizens. It seems that they are not holding themselves to a higher standard of integrity nor do they want to be held accountable by anyone else,” Kambala said.

At a media briefing on Tuesday, ECN chairperson Elsie Nghikembua admitted that the electoral body has not sat down with the PLC since their failed attempt last Thursday.

“No one has reached out to us for the discussion … We have our regular PLC meetings with the political parties but obviously now we are busy with this process. We need to complete it. At some point we are going to meet. At some point we are going to meet,” she said.