{"id":21060,"date":"2022-06-01T16:05:03","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T16:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws"},"modified":"2022-06-01T16:25:18","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T16:25:18","slug":"pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws","title":{"rendered":"PDM, ECN told to study electoral laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>POLITICAL analysts have challenged the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) and the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) to acquaint themselves with electoral laws.<\/b><\/p>\n

This comes after the two lost a Supreme Court case in which six members of the PDM were removed from the party’s parliamentary candidate list about three years ago.<\/p>\n

The six were eventually replaced unprocedurally, the Supreme Court said.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Desert Radio 95.3FM yesterday, political analyst Ndumba Kamwanyah and Institute for Public Policy Research parliamentary researcher Bradly Tjongerero said the decision by both the ECN and PDM to appeal the High Court’s decision was ill advised and could have been avoided.<\/p>\n

Kamwanya said the judgement exposes a failure to interpret electoral laws by those expected to do so.<\/p>\n

The same sentiments were echoed by lawyer Norman Tjombe, who said the judgement is a wake-up call for politicians to know they cannot \u201cwilly nilly\u201d change party lists without considering the needs of the electorate.<\/p>\n

Tjongarero said the ruling was not a surprise because the Electoral Court was clear on its ruling \u2013 specifically at looking at the unconstitutionality of the party list being changed after an election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something we already looked at last year, so it was essentially just an appeal of the 2020 Electoral Court ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the ruling by the Electoral Court was also quite clear in terms of what it indicated and how it came to be that it was unconstitutional for the party list to be changed after the elections,\u201d Tjongarero said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think obviously the impact will likely adversely affect parliament, but if we look at the substantive contribution of those six members of parliament (MPs) who were now in place it is not really that much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He claimed the ruling has caused a rift within the PDM because the initial court ruling was not followed through by the party and it proceeded to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Tjongarero said the two PDM members who actually took the matter to court were probably within their rights or were instigated by the party.<\/p>\n

Kamwanyah said the decision shows that legal components and procedures were followed by the justice system.<\/p>\n

He said as a political party, one presents their candidates and voters based on the nature of the candidates listed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened is that the people who were there later on were removed, and that is what the judgement is all about.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority who were removed from parliament are mostly from one ethnic group, and it does not do well for a political party to be seen as dominated by one ethnic group,\u201d Kamwanyah said.<\/p>\n

He said the party must adhere to the court ruling to avoid causing conflict between its members.<\/p>\n

Kamwanya said there is already a distinction between the losers of the PDM and the ECN.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no room for reconciliation or members to engage with each other. The problem is they have to go back to the drawing board and make sure they have a dialogue as members of the same party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said he foresees some trouble in terms of party unity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s an interesting case . . . This is a learning curve for both the PDM, the ECN and everybody. The laws must be interpreted and respected as such,\u201d Kamwanyah said.<\/p>\n

Tjombe told Desert Radio that the judgement will have far-reaching implications on the political and electoral set-up going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now have to get clarity from at least six judges. Remember the Electoral Court consists of three judges so that the political party cannot change or remove a list of names of candidates to the National Assembly after the election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, ECN chief electoral officer ,Theo Mujoro says they are consulting internally on the judgement for a way forward.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Namibia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. POLITICAL analysts have challenged the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) and the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) to acquaint themselves with electoral laws. This comes after the two lost a Supreme Court case in which six members of the PDM were removed from the party’s parliamentary candidate list about three years ago. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":21059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12,16],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-21060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\nPDM, ECN told to study electoral laws - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"POLITICAL analysts have challenged the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) and the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PDM, ECN told to study electoral laws\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"POLITICAL analysts have challenged the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) and the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Namibia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-06-01T16:05:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-06-01T16:25:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/06\/postQueueImg_4-629792c38aff3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"PDM, ECN told to study electoral laws\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-06-01T16:05:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-01T16:25:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws\"},\"wordCount\":646,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nambia\/sites\/29\/2022\/06\/postQueueImg_4-629792c38aff3.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"africa press\",\"Africa Press-Namibia\",\"namibia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/pdm-ecn-told-to-study-electoral-laws\",\"name\":\"PDM, ECN told to study electoral laws - 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