RUNDU – The All People’s Party has questioned the outcome of the regional council elections in the Ndonga Linena constituency in the Kavango East region.
The party claims their candidate got more votes than the declared winner of Swapo.
According to the party, the ballots that were declared spoiled were not spoiled according to the law.
APP candidate Djami Balthazar Daniel obtained 1 061 votes – 12 votes less than the Swapo candidate Kampota Michael Shiwana who received 1 073.

“According to information at hand, there were 54 ballots that voters marked or crossed on our candidate’s face and three were for the Swapo candidate because the spoiled ballots were 57 – so if we add that, then we could have won,” said the APP secretary general Vinsent Kanyetu.

Kanyetu said he asked ECN officials in the region for the results to be recounted but they refused and referred him to chief electoral officer Theo Mujoro.

“I even spoke to Mujoro and he told me there was no problem in doing so; if it is at the verification centre but the ECN officials here in the region complicated things and they didn’t agree to recount,” Kanyetu said. 
“But we handed the issue to our lawyer, who is following it up.”

Kanyetu stressed that as a party, they are insisting on recounting the results because there are some of their votes that their party agents reported were regarded by the ECN officials as spoiled because the voters crossed on the face of their candidate.

“And that is not a spoiled ballot because the intention of the voter is clear but they were rejected – but the law is saying that you look at the voters intention where they marked: if they marked on the face of a certain candidate, that means their intention is to vote for that candidate,” he said.
“That is how it was at some polling stations – and these ballots were not regarded as spoiled. This is one of the most disorganised elections I ever witnessed; most results were not verified in Kavango East.”
- jmuyamba@nepc.com.na