Africa-Press – Namibia. Otjozondjupa region governor John //Khamuseb on Tuesday urged the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) to punish officials, political agents and police officers found violating election laws to protect the government from potential embarrassment.
//Khamuseb was speaking at an ECN stakeholders’ meeting at Otjiwarongo, which was held in preparation for the Otjiwarongo by-elections set for 17 June.
He said election activities should be treated as serious constitutional matters, where officials tasked with participating in them should receive intensive training to equip them to handle elections professionally, including both sensitive and non-sensitive ECN materials.
“ECN should not only rely on comments entered into the occurrence books during elections for it to improve its next election exercise. ECN should implement punitive actions against those election officials found transgressing election activities,” he said.
//Khamuseb further stated that it is inappropriate for ballot books to run out at polling stations in a country where trained ECN officials are present and supervising elections.
He, therefore, called on the ECN to ensure that sufficient extra ballot books are always available during the by-elections.
“Elections are a constitutional mandate which should be carefully handled by the ECN, as these smaller issues only bring embarrassment to the government and portray the country’s democracy in a negative light,” he added
ECN operations director Zania Klazen concurred with //Khamuseb’s comments, saying the ECN already has punitive measures for election transgressors, such as blacklisting such officials from future ECN election activities.
“We normally blacklist such people from our future activities, as long as comments in the occurrence books can be used as proof against such people,” said Klazen.
Party members from the Independent Patriots for Change and Swapo also attended the meeting.
Otjozondjupa will hold two by-elections on 17 June for the Grootfontein and Otjiwarongo constituencies. These elections aim to fill vacancies created by the former constituency councillors, Marlayn Mbakera of Otjiwarongo and Elder Filipe of Grootfontein, who became members of parliament last month.
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