Justicia Shipena
Election results remain binding even when they contain errors, unless a court sets them aside, the High Court has ruled in a case that corrected a mistake in the allocation of a council seat in the Rundu local authority election.
In a ruling delivered on 9 December 2025, High Court judge Thomas Masuku said administrative decisions, including election outcomes, remain valid and effective until set aside by a competent court. He stressed that this principle underscores the central role of legality in the electoral process.
“It is now firmly settled that administrative decision-making remains valid and binding, however flawed, unless set aside by a competent court,” Masuku said.
The judgement followed an urgent application by the chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) and the commission itself after it discovered an error in the results of the Rundu Local Authority election held on 26 November 2025.
Rundu has seven council seats. After the vote count, returning officer David Kankara declared that one seat had been allocated to the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC). The ECN later found that this allocation was incorrect.
The commission established that the Rundu Urban Community Association (RUCA) had received 674 votes, which was more than IPC’s 642 votes, and was entitled to the seat under the applicable electoral formula.
Masuku said the ECN acted properly by approaching the court to correct its mistake instead of waiting for an affected party to challenge the decision.
He said good constitutional citizenship requires public bodies to seek court intervention when they become aware that a decision is unlawful or wrong.
“Where an administrative decision-maker becomes aware that its decision-making is tainted by illegality, it is required to approach the court to have the decision reviewed and set aside,” Masuku said.
The court accepted the matter as urgent, noting that councillors must assume office soon after elections so councils can function, elect leadership and begin their work. Any delay would have disrupted governance in Rundu.
Masuku said allowing the incorrect allocation to stand would have undermined the will of the electorate.
“It is important that there should be no distortion of the will of the people that was displayed by their votes cast in the ballot boxes,” he said.
The court declared the allocation of the seat to IPC null and void, reviewed and set it aside and substituted it with the correct allocation to RUCA.
