"Democracy has won," says opposition as court orders vote recount

Two Namibian opposition parties won a court ruling on Thursday ordering a recount of the ballots from last year's election. Judge President Petrus Damaseb said the recount should start within five days of the judgement, with the results announced on 20 March - one day before Namibia's new government is to be sworn in. He set aside the application by the opposition Congress of Democrats (CoD) and the Republican Party (RP) to have the polls declared null and void, but the Electoral Commission, a government body, was ordered to pay the legal costs of the parties. "This is a wonderful victory," said Carola Engelbrecht, secretary-general of the RP. "Democracy has won, and the ruling indicates that the judiciary is really independent from the executive," she told IRIN. "We now have a lot of work ahead of us, should the recount of some 830,000 votes start on Monday as the High Court ordered," said Tsudao Gurirab, national chairman of CoD. "There is not much time, if results are to be announced by 20 March." Election director Philemon Kanime said the Electoral Commission would "do as the court said", while Attorney General Pendukeni Ithana, who attended all the hearings, said she first had to study the four-page judgement in detail. "This judgement shows the democratic process is at work, and we will see if we will appeal," she told IRIN. Namibia celebrates its 15th independence anniversary on 21 March, when President Sam Nujoma's elected successor, Hifikepunye Pohamba, and new cabinet ministers will be sworn in. Pohamba and the ruling SWAPO party won a landslide victory on 21 November 2004 election, but the opposition alleged the voters' roll was inflated, and the unusually high turnout of around 85 percent was "questionable". The discovery of 22 abandoned ballot papers, some of them half burnt, all cast in favour of opposition parties, was also seized on as evidence of irregularities. SWAPO, which led Namibia's struggle against South African colonial rule, has resoundingly won each election since independence in 1990.