The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) is ready to deliver credible regional and local authority elections later this year despite threats posed by COVID-19 to the electoral process. Chief Electoral Officer, Theo Mujoro in an interview with NAMPA this week, which covered a range of issues, promised that the elections, which will see seasoned political parties square off against independent candidates and political organisations, will be transparent, free and fair, while safety protocols to prevent the ECN from being a COVID-19 spreading agent are high on the agenda. ECN has devised a COVID-19 mitigation strategy to that effect and will amongst others procure thermo-guns to take the temperatures of participants, face masks, hand sanitisers and demarcation barriers that will be used at all polling stations. The presence of the COVID-19 pandemic means funds to mitigate its spread have to be set aside, Mujoro said. He noted that COVID-19 mitigation measures will be observed throughout the entire electoral process, including voter education. An additional cost will also come in the form of procuring ballot papers as Namibia reverts to the use of traditional ballot papers as opposed to the use of electronic voting machines (EVMs), following a Supreme Court judgement which ruled the use of EVMs without a voter-verifiable paper trail unconstitutional. “Our attitude is that we did receive the amount we requested. My view is that the funds we received this year are more or less okay. We take the view that the COVID-19 pandemic has really impacted all spheres of our lives as a country and a society, including government budgeting. So the approach we take is to do more with fewer resources,” Mujoro said. For the 2020/21 financial year, the ECN received N$282,2 million. With regards to the future, capacity building and the 2024 general voter registration project reign supreme as ECN’s chief objectives. “This particular exercise is mandatory according to the Electoral Act. Every 10 years, we literally discard our voter cards and everybody registers afresh. And we get new voter cards for the next 10 years,” he said. The last time this exercise took place was in 2014. Additionally, Mujoro noted that capacity building at the commission is multi-faceted as it includes operations, processes and the re-engineering of systems. “As soon as we complete the forthcoming elections, we need to look at institutional capacity building in terms of activating our regional structures and being able to deal with personnel-related matters,” he asserted. -NAMPA