Most of Namibia’s opposition parties boycotted the announcement of the National Assembly and Presidential elections’ results’ event on Friday evening.
The announcement came after six days of a counting and verification process.
The only political party representative who attended the event was Jurie Viljoen of the Monitor Action Group (MAG).
MAG did not do well during the just-ended elections, and could not secure a seat in the upcoming Parliament.
At the event, the speeches of conceding candidates were not read, and Viljoen also refused to read one.
Fourteen political parties took part in the elections.
Earlier before the announcement of the elections’ results, eight of the 14 opposition parties that took part in the vote vowed to contest the results in court, alleging voting and counting irregularities.
The eight political parties said they will not accept the results of the elections.
In a joint statement issued on Friday, the parties indicated that after thorough consideration of the 2009 Presidential and National Assembly elections results as well as the events that characterised the entire electoral process, they will not accept the elections’ results as the elections were apparently conducted in contravention of the law.
The statement was jointly issued by the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), Republican Party of Namibia (RP), United Democratic Front of Namibia (UDF), National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO), All Peoples’ Party (APP), Congress of Democrats (CoD), Namibia Democratic Movement for Change (NDMC) and the Democratic Party of Namibia (DPN).
“Accepting these supposed elections’ outcome will be tantamount to undermining democracy in Namibia,” the parties said.
The parties have already instructed their legal teams to proceed to institute a court order against the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) for contravening the electoral law in the country, according to the statement.
The statement came a few hours before the official announcement of the elections’ results.
(NAMPA)