Election authorities made a bad situation worse by reopening voting at a few polling stations, suppressing the release of results at polling stations and arrogantly refusing to involve all key stakeholders in their decisions.
Late Thursday evening, the Elsie Nghikembua-led Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) announced that voting would be “extended” at some polling stations around the country (mainly in northern Namibia).
The ECN refused to explain how they selected the polling centres that reopened on Friday and Saturday after the original voting day, Wednesday, 27 November, had come and gone.
The Kunene region had 21 polling stations opened for Friday and Saturday’s new voting dispensation signed into law by president Nangolo Mbumba. Oshana got 12; Oshikoto one; Khomas one.
Given the widespread mismanagement and irregularities throughout the country, it boggles the mind how the ECN decided which polling stations to reopen for a second bite at the voting cherry.
Being the biggest region by far with half a million residents, the one station for the Khomas region raises a lot more questions in comparison to the Oshana region that has half that population, and the Kunene region with a fifth compared with the capital city.
It’s a question of fairness the ECN dismally failed to explain.
As Walvis Bay councillor Donatus Tegako pointed out, people there faced power outages, a shortage of ballot papers and slow-moving queues as they did nearly everywhere across Namibia. Why not reopen the voting everywhere?
Even then, how well prepared were all parties to ensure they had agents monitoring the surprise “extension” of voting at the ECN’s preferred polling stations?
Most crucially, the ECN hit the decisive nail in the 2024 elections coffin by reopening voting after polling results were already being made public.
With results known, a reopening potentially gave candidates and parties with the most resources an advantage to mobilise and transport voters to the few and far-between reopened polling centres.
Reopening voting after some results had been announced contaminated the credibility of the elections, with the second bite of the cherry favouring voters with resources.
As if that was not enough, ECN officials put their impartiality into question by giving the impression of having a tête-à-tête with Swapo secretary general Sophia Shaningwa. This meeting took place when they were supposed to have an inclusive consultation with all political parties.
Meeting the Swapo big shot privately after the problematic voting day earlier has only added to the criticism raised in July, when Shaningwa was the only party representative at a meeting of the ECN and president Mbumba to decide on key election matters.
Such missteps as proximity to the ruling party’s chief at the most crucial stage of the elections have further marred the electoral process and caused suspicion about what the ECN are really up to.
The opposition has, quite understandably, raised concerns about not being consulted or informed about the rationale behind keeping only some polling stations open. The African Union Electoral Observation Mission head, Speciosa Kazibwe, said the ECN has caused confusion by reopening some voting stations while counting has already started at other locations.
The credibility of the ECN’s leadership is in tatters. And unfortunately, that has an effect on whether the public can trust results that have been stopped and restarted in some places.
Election officials went as far as refusing to display results at polling stations, in clear contravention of the law.
In the absence of fairness and credibility, we cannot imagine any option but to hold fresh elections with new ECN leadership.
It will be costly starting anew, but the price of proceeding with an election that lacks public trust has long-term negative consequences for the president and lawmakers who will – correctly – be viewed as illegitimate.
Something drastic needs to be done to prevent Namibia going down the slippery slope of illegitimacy that we have seen in Zimbabwe and other countries.
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