CIVIL society has serious reservations about the freeness and fairness of the election process.

This sentiment was expressed on Friday by the Joint Observer Mission (JOM) of the Namibia Non-Governmental Organisation Forum Trust (Nangof) and the SADC Council of NGOs (SADC-CNGO), when they presented their preliminary report on the 2009 Presidential and National Assembly elections held in November.

The report was unique in that unlike those of other observer missions that concentrated primarily on the voting days, it focused on the pre-election, election, and post-election phases.

Reading the report, Nangof Trust Chairperson Ronny Dempers described the pre-election phase as having "fallen short of meeting the requirements, benchmarks and standards for the holding of free and fair elections"; the election phase as "acceptable up to the counting of ballots, when it started to derail"; and the post-election phase as marked by "a state of uncertainty".

With regard to the pre-election phase, the JOM noted that as the foundation of any election, if this phase failed to meet certain standards, the outcome of the elections is compromised. In this respect, the JOM found that while the constitution "provides for an enabling legal foundation and favourable conditions for free and fair political activity", the Electoral Act in itself contained "weaknesses and omissions that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency to close gaps for possible abuse, chaos and confusion."

It also expressed concern about the "inadequate" voter education by the ECN, which it posits could be the reason for the high number of spoilt ballots. "Instead of providing critical information to voters, the ECN entertained the nation with radio jingles about their own freeness and fairness", it said. Dempers also noted that critical voter information such as the process of counting, verification, tendered votes, etc, was not forthcoming from the ECN, leaving Namibians largely uninformed when voting days came.

The JOM also worried that instead of using the public platform to do appropriate civic education, some national leaders had instead resorted to vilifying their fellow political contestants, noting that the ECN remained quiet on the many incidences of intolerance that were in contravention of the ECN's Code of conduct.

It further stated that loopholes in the registration of voters (such as the practice of registration by sworn statements), and the questions surrounding the compilation of the Voters' Roll, with at least four different figures being announced by the ECN, reflected that thorough checking and updating had not been done.

The "glaring bias" by some state media in the favour of the Swapo party, and "the summary scrapping of the customary free air time to contesting political parties by the NBC, instead of coming up with a negotiated formula" were also point of concern. In this regard, the JOM also bemoaned the use of state resources by Swapo to further its election cause, noting that "the deliberate mixing up of state functions with party political campaigning has seriously compromised the levelness of the political playing field."

On a positive note though, the JOM commended the leadership of the Ministry of Safety and Security and particularly the Namibian Police, for "executing their mandate free from political interference, fear or favour and instructing their subordinates to act likewise."

With regards to the election phase, Dempers stated that "both polling days were peaceful and calm" and that the voting process was generally smooth, despite the limited presence of party agents, the deficiencies in the layout of some polling stations, and various other inconsistencies. He said the JOM was, however, "challenged to comment on the voter turnout in the absence of a reliable voters register", but noted that the process had shown that voting can be done in one day.

The JOM was also concerned that while the provision of counting votes at the polling stations was a positive development in the Electoral Act amendment, the legal requirement of posting these results at the stations was not adhered to in most cases.

And on the post-election phase, which the JOM noted "is still in full swing", the mission questioned the transparency of the announcement of results, stating that the "ECN was receiving results under a cloak of secrecy".

It also noted that the tendered vote system posed a huge challenge to the ECN, "thereby creating serious logistical and election management challenges". In fact, the JOM pointed to the fact that given the nature of the tendered ballot, all results would have had to be announced in one go, instead of in a piecemeal fashion as had been done, "since every constituency potentially carries tendered votes from every other constituency."

In this ongoing post-election phase, the results have been rejected by the majority of the political parties, and eight of these parties have approached the high court in this regard.

Given these findings for the three phases of the election process, Dempers said that while both Nangof and SADC-CNGO congratulate the Namibian people for a peaceful election, the joint mission could not declare the elections free and fair. Instead, it called on Namibians to "uphold peace and tolerance as the nation awaits the outcome of the court challenge(s)".