News and Information

CoD demands vote audit
November 22, 2004
PETROS KUTEEUE

THE opposition Congress of Democrats (CoD) has called for a nationwide audit and reconciliation of all votes cast in the just-ended National Assembly and Presidential election.

The CoD received the second most seats, five, after runaway victor Swapo.

In a statement issued on Friday afternoon, the opposition party charged that the election process was flawed, "hence its credibility is highly questionable".

"Until such time that a proper national audit of the results is done and the materials are reconciled to all participating parties' satisfaction ...

we reserve the right to not accept the results of the election as being reflective of the true expression and voice of Namibian voters," declared CoD spokesperson Ignatius Shixwameni.

The CoD said the polls' credibility was particularly undermined by the delays in votes counting and verification, which dragged on for about five days, and was apparently done without the involvement of all political parties.

"The million dollar question is, who was doing the final verification and certification of the results before being made public?...

we demand to know as to how this process is working and as to why results of regions which finished counting were being deliberately delayed," the party asked in a statement.

The opposition also raised doubts about the number of close to one million, out of Namibia's 1,9 million people, who had been registered as eligible voters.

"How on earth could close to a million people, which is more than half the total Namibian population, could have managed to register as voters if the 2001 census report indicates that indeed more than 51 per cent of the Namibian population are below the age of 17 years," Shixwameni noted.

"We strongly maintain and believe that the voters' roll is indeed inflated."

The voting age in Namibia in 18.

Though the fragmented opposition parties maintained the same number of parliamentary seats, CoD dropped two seats, down from seven to five.

While congratulating President-elect, Hifikepunye Pohamba, on his overwhelming victory, the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) cautioned that it was still early to pronounce itself on the just-ended the polls.

"Having been systematically involved in monitoring the electoral process since June 2002, NSHR is unable to concur with sweeping and pre-mature statements from both the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) as well as certain local and international observers that the just concluded presidential and National Assembly elections were free and fair," the organisation's Executive Director Phil ya Nangoloh said.


Source: Namibian.com.na


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