Report by Nigel Pfunde and Nicholas Gochai
A NAMIBIAN daily on Wednesday reported anomalies associated with the ongoing presidential and parliamentary elections in that country.
There are allegations that at one of the polling stations, International University of Management (IUM), in Windhoek, there was a rare occurrence where an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) emitted a beeping sound without being touched.
Under normal circumstances, EVMs only make such sounds when a voter has registered their vote.
This incident puts Defence minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, who is leading the regional bloc, Sadc Observer Mission, in a catch 22 situation.
In October, Botswana’s main opposition leader Duma Boko refused to meet the Sibusiso Moyo-led observer mission, accusing the regional body of bias.
Sadc observer missions have for long carried the tag of allowing the tinkering of election results as long as they favoured ruling parties in the region.
The situation was the same in the recently held plebiscite in Mozambique, where Muchinguri-Kashiri also ironically headed the observer mission.
Mozambique opposition parties led by Renamo rejected the results and called for their nullification, accusing the government of breaching a peace deal by using violence and intimidation on voting day.
President Filipe Nyusi and his ruling Frelimo party retained power amid accusations that electoral processes were marred by fraud and other irregularities.
Sadc, however, concluded that the Mozambique election was conducted in an “orderly manner”, adding that everything was above board.
“The pre-election and the voting phases of the 2019 electoral processes were generally peaceful and conducted in an orderly manner,” Muchinguri-Kashiri was quoted as saying.
This assessment was, however, contradicted by some international observer teams, including the Commonwealth, who expressed concerns about voter registration irregularities and “an unlevel playing field”.
This publication was not able to draw a comment from Muchinguri-Kashiri at the time of writing.
Meanwhile,the last poll was held in 2014, when Swapo scored 80% of the votes
Its presidential candidate, Hage Geingob, came close to 87% of the votes.
