Thread: Discoverty of irregularities

PRESS CONFERENCE, November 19 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen

My name is Phil ya Nangoloh and I am speaking to you in my official capacity as the Executive Director of Namibia’s National Society for Human Rights (NSHR). NSHR is one of the stakeholders accredited by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) to help ECN ensure its mission statement as contemplated under Section 4(1) of the Electoral Act 1992 (Act 24 of 1992), as amended.

In that capacity I thank you all for your concern about free, fair, transparent and credible elections and hence your presence here today.

As you are well aware, NSHR has been established more than twenty years ago as a truly independent human rights watchdog in order to, inter alia, promote the following broad objectives:

• to secure due recognition and observance of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, especially those enshrined in the Namibian Constitution and as enumerated in the international human rights and humanitarian treaties and declarations adopted by the United Nations, its specialized agencies and similar international bodies such as SADC and AU.
• to promote transparency in public administration, including election management
• to promote representative political power based on active and informed public participation.

It is against this background that we also systematically monitor and advocate the holding of free, fair, transparent and credible elections in Namibia. In this specific regard, we consider ourselves as both a reliable and formidable stakeholder and partner for the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN). Part of free, fair, transparent and credible elections is effective management and competence in the field.

It is however, with deep regret that we have invited you to this Media Briefing to share with you our deep concern that the current electoral process might NOT be free, fair and transparent, let alone being credible. We have compiled a dossier with several annexes which, we sincerely believe, prove our concern. This compilation of various ‘smoking gun’ evidence (including documentary proof) uncovers, inter alia, the following suspected gross irregularities on the part of ECN:

1. Issuance of duplicate voters’ cards (see Annex 1 and Annexes 3 to 15)
2. Inclusion of deceased persons (including prominent personalities) as registered voters (see Annex 2)
3. Post deadline registration of voters (Annexes 3 to 15)
4. Evidence of more mobile stations than fixed stations in certain regions; e.g. in Omusati Region there is a total of 172 mobile polling stations compared to 146 fixed polling stations!
5. Registration of persons who are under age (below the age of 18 years) ( see Annex 14)

NSHR calls for a one-day voting process, the auditing of ballot boxes and punching of voters’ cards after voting as well as an end to a tender ballot system, sworn system and issuance of double and triple voters’ cards.

I thank you!