By Catherine Sasman

WINDHOEK – The DTA of Namibia has registered 198 “known errors”, which are duplicate registrations, after scrutinising the voters’ roll.

The party’s Chairperson, Johan de Waal, however, says the party was only able to examine three of the 107 constituencies – Katutura Central, Katutura East and Khomasdal North – within the time that was given. Parties were given until last Friday, from last week Monday when the voters’ roll was issued, to scrutinise it. The DTA warns that the margin of error, considering all constituencies, could roughly account for 10 percent.

The party adds that little or no effort was seemingly made to clear up duplications; that the gender of many registered voters was not indicated clearly; sworn identifications seemed high and likely to contribute to duplications, especially in rural areas; and that there appeared to be no clarity on where constituencies end or start. It concludes that the current voters’ roll “has substantial inaccuracies which can provide a fertile ground for material election fraud”.

The DTA thus calls for an independent assessment of the voters’ roll to quantify the likely error and its potential impact on election results. De Waal had earlier complained that the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) gave parties the voters’ roll on a CD Rom in pdf format, making it almost impossible to effectively search and scrutinise the roll.

As a result of the technical difficulties, he said, his party requested the ECN to extend the deadline for the voters’ roll inspection to Wednesday (tomorrow) to give parties more time to scrutinise the voters’ information.

Last Thursday, the Chairperson of the ECN, Victor Tonchi, said he was not aware of such a request from political parties.

The DTA further states that it rejects the complaints and accusations made against the DTA of Namibia in the ECN advertorial placed in newspapers last Friday, describing the content of the advertorial as “over-sensitive and over-reaction”. It says it would continue to play a watchdog role “and will not allow the ECN to intimidate us or to bend the rules in the case of the allocation of the tender to a Swapo company”.

“The fact is that this whole dispute with the ECN [disagreements over the number of voters registering during the supplementary registration process that ended in September] could have been avoided if the ECN had provided the political parties with the detailed results of the supplementary registration process,” says the DTA of Namibia.