Zorena Jantze
SISA Namandje, the lawyer representing the SWAPO party and President-elect Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah in the Supreme Court challenge of the 2024 Presidential election outcomes, has denied claims that only a few polling stations were opened in SWAPO stronghold regions.
However, he asserted that the President chose to extend polls to only 36 polling stations, as they were the only ones that continued to experience ballot paper shortages.
Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) President and the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) opined that the polls not being opened countrywide constituted a bias, and that the President did not have the legal power to extend the elections beyond 27th November 2024.
“There were over 4,000 polling stations where alarms were raised about the possibility of ballot papers running out. The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) said that we fixed that problem and that everybody at those 247 polling stations who was in a line by 21:00 hours was able to vote. They said we restocked all those polling stations. Unfortunately, at 36 polling stations, the problem remained,” Namandje said, adding that neither of the applicants attacked the rationality of this decision.
He further stated that ignoring the ECN’s explanation that the problem had been fixed would have resulted in voters casting their ballots at polling stations where the counting of votes had already been initiated and announced.
Namandje added that if one goes to Section 64 of the Electoral Act, it indicates that the ECN is the primary power and controller and that the President has executive powers. “These are executive decisions to complete the process,” Namandje said.
He added that, according to Section 64, the President must, by proclamation in the Gazette, announce a date determined by the President, upon recommendation by the Commission, on which a poll will take place in the election.
“While Section 64(1)(b) of the Act does not expressly state that once the President has determined a particular date(s) as the poll day, he could thereafter amend or extend the poll period, we submit that he had implied power (necessary and corollary), considered together with the provisions of Sections 9(1) and (3) of the Interpretation of Laws Proclamation, No. 37 of 1920, and with Sections 1(2) and 4 of the Act,” Namandje said.
In response to Namandje’s claims that the 36 polling stations were opened due to the fact that they were the only ones that experienced ballot paper shortages, South African senior counsel, Advocate Anton Katz, who represents the IPC, said that some of the 36 polling stations did not appear in the first government notice schedule.
“We don’t take any issue with whether the extended voting was to accommodate SWAPO. We do not say that the President and the Commission extended the voting to accommodate SWAPO. What I have been listening to causes the defence to implode,” Katz said, adding that 25 of the 36 polling stations were not in the government notice schedule.
The schedule included polling stations for normal voters, those abroad, as well as polls for those at sea, soldiers, correctional officers, and police.
He further questioned whether or not the President created fresh new polling stations and invited them to show evidence. “This court should consider what the implications are if the President and Commission come to this court and say that 36 polling stations are on the schedule when factually they are not. It is not something this court can sweep away. If they are right, we will withdraw this argument,” Katz said.
The Presidential challenge matter was postponed to 28th February 2025 for judgment by the five Supreme Court judges.
