Multiple opposition parties say they will reject the outcome of Namibia's elections, claiming the Electoral Commission of Namibia's failures led to voter suppression.

Listen to this article 9 min Listen to this article 9 min Namibia's presidential and National Assembly elections are shaping up to be the country's most controversial and contentious elections to date. Political parties and leaders have shared their concerns that the elections were not "free and fair".

While these elections elicited criticism from various stakeholders, they were not Namibia's first elections to be challenged in court.

Panduleni Itula, then an independent candidate, challenged Namibia's 2019 elections in the country's Supreme Court. This was on the basis that the electronic voting machines (EVMs) that were used for the elections "had no paper trail" and thus results could not be verified.

In February 2020, the court ruled that the use of EVMs without a proper paper trail was unconstitutional, but it did not overturn the election result.

Itula went on to establish the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) in late 2020.

In the 2019 elections, Itula gained the highest vote of any candidate opposing Swapo, with 29.37%. Swapo's candidate, the country's late president Hage Geingob, secured only 56.25% of the vote, compared to the 86.73% he won in 2014.

According to Henning Melber, an extraordinary professor of political science at the...