namibian president nango Mumba has amended the initial proclamation of the namibian presidential and National Assembly elections to enable an extension of voting day till today let's speak to Dr mariio gumo who's a public policy analyst in Namibia about this Dr Kumo thank you so much for your time really do appreciate it uh is this an unusual exercise of the Proclamation uh and it being extended the extension of Elections usually bring about worries of a process of vote rigging and the integrity and sanctity of ballots being contaminated uh what has been uh the thinking behind the
extension of the Proclamation as a legal instrument here yeah thank you very much for the opportunity the thinking was to give opportunity to those voters that could not vote during the first day to vote but as you have indicated there have been issues that were raised basically this extension is only in certain areas in certain regions it's not all over the country and the debate have been that there were also people in some of the regions who could not vote and therefore what is special about these regions and not the other regions basically it's just
bringing the whole exercise into raising more questions because of the way in which the Electoral Commission of Namibia have handled this election which we have not seen before the chaotic situation in terms of what happened we have never seen it before in the namibian election processes does it have the potential to distort what ultimately becomes the result especially when you look at certain political parties performing well only in specific regions like the landless people movement for instance doing well in areas where they are predominantly dear voters for instance is that likely to be a consideration
in the Integrity of the ultimate result I don't think so the issue is just the rationale for extending what we have seen during the voting have not been adequately and convincingly explained the major issue was the lack of adequate ballot papers at certain polling stations as well as some equipments that were not functioning and as a result the fact that there were too many people in the cues very slow and actually not everyone have voted these are the key issues in other words it would appear as if the Electoral Commission of Namibia has not adequately
prepared in conduct a democratic Free Fair transparent and credible election also it would appear there were no mitigating strategies in addressing those issues that have Arisen for example the issue of few ballot papers ex seted station and it took hours for them to bring the ballot papers that were required and the extension is actually creating more confusion because it was not adequately explained in the first place how did we find ourself in the situation in which we found ourself so in terms of certain political parties receiving many of their votes in certain areas that we
have expected because these are the strong points and many of the political parties in Namibia are actually Community Based or their sensitivity they get their support from certain communities so that is not the major isue the major issue is the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness in the manner in which the Electoral commission has handled the election yeah do you expect to see heads rolling after this elections especially when the Electoral commission given how this is played out I don't think so but in a capable States in a state that is based on Merit heads are supposed to
roll actually if they don't resign if the Commissioners do not resign if the senior staff of the commission do not resign heads are supposed to run and the reason why I'm arguing that I don't think so is the way how the commission have came out they have not adequately explained what happened there's a lot of Anger of people spending 11 12 hours in the cues to vote and there's no reasonable explanation why this is the case so there's no remorse there's no adequate explanation from the commission therefore I think from their side maybe they think
they are doing a good job but if it has a state that is based on Merit then they should have resigned themselves or they should have been fired because my worry is the voter turn out was high especially first time voters young people and the experience that they have of participating in a democratic process is a negative experience instead of a positive enjoying experience therefore heads are supposed to roll but I don't think they will roll yeah Dr mariio good thank you so much for your time and your insights I really do appreciate it Dr
Dr mariio gumo is a public policy analyst
