EDITORIAL: Discerning ECN’s behavioural patterns

Yesterday, the editor of this newspaper tweeted: “[The Electoral Commission of Namibia] is busy this year. If they're not sitting in partisan meetings at State House, or deregistering parties against the attorney-general's legal advice, they're foregoing procurement processes to print ballots”.

Indeed, the pattern of ECN’s behaviour has been unpleasant to watch. It started with a meeting at State House attended by Swapo secretary-general Sophia Shaningwa, while no representative of another political party was present.

Then, against the attorney-general’s legal advice, ECN proceeded to deregister two opposition parties in a highly questionable manner. While the parties concerned were no saints by any stretch of the imagination on the accusations they were facing, the electoral body’s trigger-happy action was found inappropriate by the High Court. The fact that the ECN was ordered to foot Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters’ legal costs in the matter was a further indictment of how illegal its conduct was.

To compound matters, ECN has also refused to reveal a legal opinion it obtained after the Independent Patriots for Change questioned the constitutionality of presidential candidates vying for both parliament and State House in one breath. To date, the nation remains in the dark about the legality of this practice. It’s as if ECN is not accountable to the people.

Yesterday, ECN announced that it was forgoing the routine procurement process for printing ballot papers. It claims, without an iota of shame, that the process would be delayed if it took the normal route.

This delay is on ECN itself. And, as one observer remarked yesterday, this issue either tells us that ECN is grossly incompetent, or that its actions are purely intentional.