PRESS RELEASE

In a statement issued during a Press Conference held at Eenhana this afternoon, ECN Chairperson Dr. Victor Tonchi said that his organization made these findings, following its “routine visit” and or its “working mission” to the Omuthiya Local Authority Area in the Oshikoto Region and Eenhana Constituency in the Ohangwena Region yesterday.

However, NSHR is not surprised at the ECN findings, as the said irregularities and or flaws were allegedly committed by the Oshikoto and Ohangwena Regional Councils in accordance with the standing arrangement between them and the ECN and further that the ECN investigation was substantively and procedurally flawed in se.

Moreover, NSHR questions the unfairness and or unreasonableness inherent in the said arrangement and states further that the recruitment was procedurally and substantially unfair and ipso facto also irregular and flawed. Hence, the human rights organization welcomes the undertaking by the ECN to review its recruitment procedures “with the aim of addressing any loopholes that might be prevalent in the present application and selection procedures for election officials”.

“As far as we are concerned, this is a constructive admission by ECN pointing to, at least, the fact that there is circumstantial evidence that irregularities have in fact occurred as had been alleged and such irregularities were foreseeable. The ECN probe was therefore inherently irregular and faulty ab initio as ECN can hardly fairly and objectively investigate itself. An independent investigation would have been much more credible”, said NSHR spokesperson Dorkas Phillemon late this afternoon.