Windhoek, Namibia (AFP) – Namibia’s election authority announced Thursday two extra days of voting at some polling stations after logistical failures prevented many people from casting ballots in the ruling party’s most contested election yet.
The commission had already extended voting into Thursday due to the long lines of people still waiting to cast their ballots after the scheduled closing time of 9:00 pm (1900 GMT) Wednesday.
Thirty-six polling stations will be open on Friday and Saturday, the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) said, admitting to logistical and technical problems that delayed voting and left people queueing for up to 12 hours.
The polls are a key test for the liberation-era SWAPO party that has governed the mineral-rich country since independence 34 years ago but is being challenged by a younger generation of voters frustrated by high unemployment and enduring inequalities.
A group of opposition parties said earlier they wanted the suspension of the confused process, with ballot counting starting while some people were still voting.
“We are going to demand the Electoral Commission of Namibia to cease the counting of votes and also to stop the current voting process that is taking place at various polling stations across the country,” said Christine Aochamus of the main opposition party, Independent Patriots for Change (IPC).
“We have a reason to believe that the ECN is deliberately suppressing voters and deliberately trying to frustrate voters from casting their vote,” said Aochamus.
The smaller opposition Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters party said it wanted the vote to annulled because of the disarray.
“This election process was not free,” said representative Saddam Amushelelo. “We are not going to accept the election results.”
The IPC’s leader, former dentist and lawyer Panduleni Itula, is perhaps the strongest challenger to SWAPO’s candidate, vice-president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, who could become the first woman to lead the sparsely populated nation.
Analysts have said Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, could be forced into a second round if she does not win more than half of votes.
– Long queues –
The long queues were “a signal that people really want a change”, said Ndumba Kamwanyah, lecturer in the Department of Human Sciences at the University of Namibia.
“For me, it seems it’s not good news for the incumbent party,” he told AFP.
Armed with folding chairs and umbrellas to cope with the slow-moving lines and blazing sun, Namibians among the 1.5 million registered voters spent up to 12 hours waiting outside polling stations on Wednesday.
At the University of Science and Technology in the capital Windhoek, voting stopped at 5:00 am on Thursday, polling officers told AFP.
“It’s absolutely disappointing,” said Reagan Cooper, a 43-year-old farmer among the hundred or so voters outside the town hall polling station in Windhoek.
“The voters have turned out, but the electoral commission has failed us,” Cooper told AFP.
SWAPO has governed since leading Namibia to independence from South Africa in 1990 but complaints about unemployment and enduring inequalities are undermining its standing.
Namibia is a major uranium and diamond exporter but not many of its nearly three million people have benefited from that wealth in terms of improved infrastructure and job opportunities, analysts say.
Young people are particularly frustrated with unemployment among 15- to 34-year-olds, estimated at 46 percent, almost triple the national average, according to the latest figures from 2018.
According to election authorities, 42 percent of registered voters were aged under 35.
© Agence France-Presse
