Four of Namibia’s opposition parties said on Wednesday that they plan to ask the high court to order a recount of ballots cast in elections last week that handed a landslide victory to the ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) party.
”We have gathered enough evidence that the counting process was not fair, that a number of voters had more than one voter card and that results were artificially adjusted to the advantage of others,” said Nora Schimming-Chase of the Congress of Democrats (CoD).
”We owe it to democracy to have the votes verified,” she said.
Swapo won 75,1% of the vote, its third victory since Namibia’s independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.
Swapo presidential candidate Hifikepunye Pohamba, President Sam Nujoma’s chosen successor, won a whopping 76,4% of the vote in the presidential ballot.
The CoD, which garnered 7,3% of the vote, has joined forces with three other smaller parties to ask the high court to order ”an urgent verification of election results”, Schimming-Chase said.
The parties also complained that election results were announced before all ballot papers from Namibians abroad were counted, in violation of electoral law.
The other three parties signing on to the complaint that is to be filed this week are the Republican Party, the South West Africa National Union (Swanu) and the Namibia Movement for Democratic Change (NMDC).
Election observers from the Southern African Development Community and the African Union called the Namibian elections — the third since independence in 1990 — free and fair.
Despite fairly smooth polling last Monday and Tuesday, counting ballots in the vast desert country of 1,82 million people became a major headache, with official results being announced only on Sunday. – Sapa-AFP