Why did Swapo question EVMs?

NGHININGILUANDUBO KASHUME, RDP SECRETARY FOR INFORMATION AND PUBLICITY WRITES:

By now, the nation ought to know the RDP stand point regarding the electronic voting machines (EVM) which lack transparency, credibility and reliability.

RDP has pointed out many times that the EVMs cannot be trusted and their distributions of results are always skewed in favour of the ruling party. To us in the RDP, we are not surprised to learn that the Swapo Party Central Committee has decided against the use of EVMs at their recently concluded Congress.

Fundamentally, when RDP demands the scrapping of the use of the EVM system, it must be understood that we are neither making a political gimmick nor are we cry-babies.

Elections in any country are often highly charged and as such, they need to be handled with care. The use of EVM voting systems particularly without voter verifiable paper audit trail lacks transparency, credibility and cannot guarantee fairness.

During the election process, tempers are often raised and lack of fairness can easily lead to violence as witnessed in many African Countries. The decision of the Swapo Party Central Committee was meant to avoid subsequent acrimony and possible rejection of the results.

Participants in elections always wish to see that the process were free, fair and credible. If the EVM system is rejected by the Central Committee of Swapo who are we not to call for its abolishment and replace it with a manual voting system?

There is no denying that the EVMs cannot deliver free, fair, credible and transparent results. The system is characterised by secrecy that can easily evoke feelings of suspicion.

As Namibians, we must learn that prevention is better than cure. Thus we call upon the Swapo Party led Government to totally abolish the use of an EVM voting system.