ECN settles NEFF’s legal fees after incorrectly deregistering party

The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) has paid the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters’ legal bill after wrongly deregistering the party. This was announced by the NEFF’s legal representative, Kadhila Amoomo, on social media on Wednesday. “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 this serious damage they caused,” Amoomo said. The NEFF was deregistered last year for failing to submit its financial statements by the prescribed deadline. The amount paid has not been disclosed. In August 2024, the NEFF lost a case against the ECN in the Electoral Court after it challenged its deregistration in June 2024. The ECN, through its lawyer, argued that the NEFF’s application should have been filed in the High Court rather than the Electoral Court. The NEFF, which won two seats in the National Assembly in the November 2019 parliamentary elections, was asking the court to order the ECN not to proceed with the implementation of its decision to cancel the NEFF’s registration as a political party. Amoomo at the time described the decision as “drastic and probably unprecedented” and as “effectively banning a political party”. In September 2024, the High Court delivered a judgement in which the ECN’s decision was declared unlawful, and the ECN was ordered to pay the NEFF’s legal costs.