by Bayano Valy – SANF 04 no 99
Namibia, after Botswana, Malawi and South Africa, has shown that southern African observer missions are as good as their overseas counterparts.
The country’s Electoral Commission (ECN) chairperson, Victor Tonchi, told SANF that they had invited neither the European Union nor the Carter Centre to observe the elections on 15 and 16 November because “we didn’t think any other group would really inject anything that we wouldn’t know.”
However, the ECN had not closed its doors on overseas groups. “Anybody was free to come” on condition they applied.
The ECN invited the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Observer Mission, the SADC Electoral Commissioners Forum, the SADC-Parliamentary Forum, the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA), and the African Union as well as non-governmental organisations involved in elections observation.
There are 548 SADC observers of the Namibian elections deployed throughout the country.
The SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections approved in August by the heads of state and government meeting in Mauritius leaves open the option to invite observer missions, or not.
For Namibia’s election, Tonchi said only regional organisations could add value to the electoral process. They “are very much effective in electoral observation,” he said.
The EU Observer Mission and the Carter Centre are at the heart of a controversy in Mozambique. They are demanding to have full access to all stages of the forthcoming general elections; which means access from voter registration to vote tabulation of the election results.
But the country’s Election Commission (CNE) has vehemently opposed such moves, saying the law forbids it. In fact, the law is silent about this; so CNE has applied the principle that what is not envisaged by law is not allowed.
Some analysts have said that overseas observers, particularly the EU Observer Mission which provided 70 percent of the total US$11 million election budget, are using that fact to arm-twist Mozambique into agreeing to their demands.
Even President Joaquim Chissano, who at first suggested that the CNE should accommodate the EU Observer Mission’s demands, has diplomatically chided the insistence on full access.
He told the diplomatic corps at a recent farewell function for him that he did not like being reminded of who had bought him a jacket, and how he should wear it – a veiled criticism at behind-closed-doors reminders of who finances the elections.
President Chissano is standing down after the 1-2 December poll, having been at the helm of Mozambique for 18 years.
Rather the overseas observer missions should be flexible, he said, and agree to the technical conditions set up by the country’s State Administration Electoral Secretariat (STAE), the executive arm of the CNE.
The technical conditions include watching the vote tabulation process through windows, access to computers in the media centre linked to the main machine, and not talk to the technical staff.
Perhaps, the Mozambican dilemma arises because most of its election budget is donor funded. Not so for Botswana, Namibia and South Africa which funded their own elections.
With regard to Botswana and South Africa, officials in Brussels had been quoted as saying that there was no need to observe the elections in those countries.
Meanwhile, a SADC observer told SANF that the Namibian elections had gone without incident apart from a technical glitch involving computers that delayed voting in some 300 polling stations.
This was owed to a communication problem between field staff and the nerve centre. Apparently, computer operators in the field could not log into nerve centre to access the voters register because they did not have correct passwords.
Notwithstanding the glitches which were understandable because it is the first time Namibia uses the electronic system, Namibians had flocked to the polling stations in large numbers which kept increasing towards the end of the voting days, and this had made the ECN “generally satisfied with the election process.”
“The ECN is grateful to the electorate who turned up in huge numbers to cast their votes at the polling stations throughout the country,” Tonchi said.
Earlier in the day, outgoing President Sam Nujoma had called on SADC member countries to continue strengthening democracy by voting as the Namibians do – in large numbers. Turn out in Namibia has always gone over the 70 percent mark.
Tonchi said that Namibia is in line with a number of principles enshrined in the regional electoral standards. “I think we’re on course” to fully implement the guidelines, he said.
The electoral guidelines call on member states to adopt common electoral standards, while recognising that laws differ in different countries, and what works for one may not work for another.
In Namibia, for example, the country uses the tendered ballot system which means that any voter can cast their ballot any way they wish. Although flexible, this slows down voting and is expensive. (SARDC)
