The payment, whose exact amount remains undisclosed, comes after a lengthy legal dispute between the ECN and the NEFF. The matter stemmed from the commission’s decision to deregister the opposition party last year for failing to submit its financial statements within the prescribed deadline.
The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) has paid legal costs to the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF), following a High Court ruling that found the party’s deregistration in 2024 to be unlawful.
In June 2024, NEFF challenged the decision in the Electoral Court, seeking to prevent the ECN from enforcing the deregistration. However, the case was dismissed in August 2024 after the court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction and that the application should have been filed in the High Court instead.
The High Court later overturned the ECN’s decision in September 2024, declaring the deregistration unlawful and ordering the commission to cover NEFF’s legal expenses.
Confirming the development on social media, Kadhila Amoomo Legal Practice stated:
“The Electoral Commission of Namibia has finally paid the legal damages of our client NEFF. Last year they wrongly deregistered them and cost them electoral loss. We took them to court and won. We are not done with them; they still have to pay more for the serious damage they caused.”
At the time of the deregistration, NEFF had two seats in the National Assembly, having secured them during the 2019 parliamentary elections. Their lawyer, Kadhila Amoomo, had described the ECN’s move as “drastic and probably unprecedented,” arguing that it amounted to “effectively banning a political party.”
