Namibia extends voting due to logistical problems

Namibians were still voting early Thursday, hours after polls were scheduled to close in presidential and parliamentary elections to test the ruling party’s 34-year rule in the southern African country.

Although the polls were scheduled to close at 21:00 (19:00 GMT) on Wednesday, crowds waited to vote due to logistical problems.

Vote counting had started in some polling stations, and according to the election calendar, the first results were expected to be available by Saturday.

The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) said it would extend voting hours in the face of criticism from political parties and voters over long queues.

“Some people were still voting” on Thursday morning, ECN spokeswoman Siluka De Wet told AFP.

Voting at the University of Science and Technology in Windhoek was stopped at 5am on Thursday, polling officials told AFP.

The vote could see the desert country’s first female leader face the strongest challenge to her party, the ruling South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), to its dominance in politics since Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990.

After casting her ballot, SWAPO’s candidate and current vice president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, called on the 1.5 million people registered to vote in the country to “put up their numbers”.

It’s definitely disappointing

According to Namibia’s election law, people waiting in line must be allowed to vote before the polls close.

Some voters told AFP they queued for 12 hours due to technical problems, including problems with voter ID tablets and insufficient ballot papers.

“It’s definitely disappointing,” said Reagan Cooper, a 43-year-old farmer who was among about a hundred voters outside the city hall polling station in Windhoek.

“The voters cast their votes but the electoral commission let us down,” Cooper told AFP.

Armed with folding chairs and umbrellas to survive the slow-moving lines and scorching sun, many Namibians spent half the day waiting to vote.

Polling station managers told AFP that problems with tablets used to check voters’ identities using fingerprints included untimely updates, overheating and dead batteries.

The main opposition party, the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), blamed the ECN for the long queues and cried foul.

“We have reason to believe that ECN is deliberately engaging in voter suppression and deliberately trying to prevent voters from voting,” said IPC’s Christine Aochamus.

SWAPO has governed mineral-rich Namibia since independence, but complaints about unemployment and persistent inequalities could force Nandi-Ndaitwah into an unprecedented runoff.

IPC leader Panduleni Itula, a former dentist and lawyer, said on Wednesday he was optimistic he could “dislodge the revolutionary movement”.

For the first time in Namibia’s recent history, a second round of voting is a realistic option, analysts say.

This will happen within 60 days of the first round of results being announced by Saturday.

Namibia is a major exporter of uranium and diamonds, but many of its nearly three million people have not benefited from this wealth.

“There’s a lot of mining activity going on in the country, but it’s not really translating into developed infrastructure and job opportunities,” said Marisa Lourenco, an independent political analyst based in Johannesburg.

“That’s where a lot of the frustration comes from, especially from young people,” he said.

According to the latest figures of 2018, unemployment for those aged 15-34 is estimated to be 46 percent; This rate is almost three times the national average.