By Brigitte Weidlich

COMPLAINTS have poured in from political parties about several mistakes on the preliminary voters' roll, which had been open to scrutiny for five days until Friday.

Opposition parties were also frustrated that they were given a 'read only' copy of the roll instead of a workable spreadsheet format.

The DTA registered its official complaint with the Windhoek Magistrate's Court on Friday.

They listed 198 mistakes in the form of duplications of registered voters in three constituencies - Katutura Central, Katutura East and Khomasdal North.

The ECN only sent the DTA a spreadsheet for these three constituencies, although the party wanted this format for all 107 constituencies.

According to professional auditors asked by the DTA to scrutinise these three constituencies, they found 48 duplications.

They said this seemed low, "but there is a high degree that thefigure will grow exponentially when checking against more constituencies".

"With 107 constituencies in total the error could be as high as 1 300 duplications per constituency, which is roughly a 10 per cent error margin," the auditors said.

"There seem to be a number of people with the same first, surname and birth dates. However their gender seems to differ, which seems to indicate either weak data capturing or alternatively gender-transforming Namibians," they stated.

"Persons staying in the same street with duplicated voter registration also seem to be able to vote in two constituencies, as their address and street seems to simultaneously be in two constituencies. One can conclude that there is no clarity where constituencies end and start."

The identified errors seemed to be symptomatic of a larger problem, the auditors said in their analysis.

"Given the limited sample tested and results obtained there is a real risk that the current voters' list has substantial inaccuracies which can provide a fertile ground for material election fraud. Before any further steps are undertaken, an independent assessment of the voters' list should be performed to quantify the likely error and its potential impact on election results."

In a vitriolic attack against the DTA, the ECN on Friday published a two-page text in newspapers accusing the party of tarnishing the reputation of the ECN.

DTA Chairman Johan de Waal remained adamant.

"This whole dispute with the ECN could have been avoided if the ECN had provided the political parties with the detailed results of the supplementary registration process," De Waal said yesterday.

"We wanted figures about how many people were newly registered, how many people applied for duplicates and how many people applied for a change of address in each constituency. We still do not have these figures because the ECN is still either unable or unwilling to provide these figures."

A Member of Parliament, Jurie Viljoen of the Monitor Action Group (MAG), is not on the preliminary voters' roll, although he has a valid voter card.

"I sent a letter to the ECN last week alerting them to this and I hope I will be included in the final voters' roll," Viljoen told The Namibian yesterday.

According to Theo Mujoro, Deputy Director of Operations at the ECN, his staff was contacting all Magistrate's Courts in the country to hear whether complaints had been received, "to get an idea of the number of objections raised."

Magistrates have until November 3 to serve notices on voters whose names on the roll have been challenged, and to make rulings.

"Until November 5, those voters can appeal to Judges about the rulings given by magistrates," Mujoro said. By November 9, the final roll would be out.

the Namibian: Top Stories