‘ECN bosses must quit’

Kenya Kambowe



RUNDU

All People’s Party (APP) president Ignatius Shixwameni says the leadership of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) should resign from their positions following yesterday’s electoral judgement which nullified the 27 November 2020 Ndonga Linena constituency election results and ordered a recount.

In an exclusive interview with Namibian Sun following the judgement, Shixwameni said heads will have to roll at both national and regional level, and urged ECN bosses to jump ship before the matter blows up in their faces.

“It is going to be embarrassment for the ECN and what I can call now is the CEO Theo Mujoro and his senior managers should quit. They have already proven that that are incompetent and politically exposed people,” he said.

Attempts to get comment from Mujoro by the time of going to print proved futile as his phone went answered on numerous occasions.

Meanwhile, Shixwameni said regardless of the outcome of the recount, the APP has exposed that the ECN is not a credible institution but a fraudulent organisation depriving the nation of free and fair elections.

He went on to say that the ECN, with its now tainted image, will have to explain what transpired during the Ndonga Linena elections and also regain the public’s confidence that they did not temper with election results over the past 31 years.

“What we are doing is exposing the whole electoral system as a fraud and as a criminal process. It has never been fair and never been free and never democratic. That is what we want to expose,” the APP leader said.

Please explain

“If there are contradictions in the results after the recount, the electoral commission will have to explain.

“They must be able to explain why the results they announced then are not the same as the new results. That puts the credibility of the electoral commission at disposure and being challenged if they are really an independent electoral commission.”

Yesterday, the electoral court - which had a full bench of Judge President Petrus Damaseb, Deputy Judge President Hosea Angula and Judge Esi Schimming-Chase - gave the APP a default judgement following its court application.

APP earlier this year initially took ECN to court on the basis that it believed the party should have been awarded 40 of the 57 rejected ballots announced on 27 November 2020 for the Ndonga Linena election results.

This is after the party learnt through its agents that some voters did not mark the appropriate box on the ballot, but made crosses on the face of the APP candidate Djami Daniel, who was announced as the runner-up to Swapo’s candidate, Michael Kampota.

Kampota won by a mere 12 votes.

In August, the court granted APP access to the election materials, but the party then found out that there were only four spoilt ballots instead of 57.

It was on that basis the APP went back to the electoral court to compel the ECN to explain this discrepancy.

Confident

ECN did not oppose the application, which resulted to yesterday’s default judgement.

This means Swapo’s Kampota is no longer the Ndonga Linena constituency councillor until ECN facilitates the recount.

ECN has been given 10 calendar days to start the recount and must ensure that the process is concluded within the next 20 days.

When contacted for comment yesterday, Kampota said he remains confident that he will continue his role as councillor after the recount.

Swapo secretary-general Sophia Shaningwa declined to comment on the matter.

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