Namibia faces election chaos as voting prolonged after ‘irregularities’
Opposition in search of to upend a long time of governing Swapo dominance urges voters to remain the course and forged ballots.
Tensions are mounting in Namibia after a controversial extension of presidential and parliamentary elections into the weekend owing to “irregularities” that slowed down voting.
The Electoral Fee of Namibia (ECN) introduced on Friday that polling stations that ought to have closed two days earlier, would stay open till Saturday night time, admitting to “logistical” failures, together with a scarcity of poll papers and overheating digital tablets used to register voters, which left them standing in queues for hours.
The opposition Impartial Patriots for Change (IPC) celebration, which hopes to finish 34 years of rule by the South West Africa Individuals’s Organisation (Swapo), protested in opposition to the brand new extension however urged voters to forged their ballots.
“Regrettably, there was a large number of irregularities,” mentioned IPC presidential candidate Panduleni Itula. However, he added, there was “no different various than for the residents to hold out what’s proposed by the [ECN] to its conclusion”.
He’s standing in opposition to Swapo’s Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, at the moment the vp, who would develop into the mineral-rich nation’s first feminine chief if she wins.
Nangombe Shitaleni, a registered voter ready in a line on the Okandjengedi group centre polling station in northern Namibia, mentioned on Friday that he had returned each day to vote, to no avail.
“It’s like you’re a mad particular person,” he mentioned.
Youth frustration
Namibia is a former German colony that got here underneath South African management after World Conflict I, its Black majority later subjected to apartheid insurance policies.
Swapo was on the forefront of the nation’s combat for freedom and has dominated politics since independence in 1990.
However Nandi-Ndaitwah’s bid for the presidency faces pushback from a youthful inhabitants pissed off by an absence of alternatives. The World Financial institution charges Namibia as an upper-middle-income nation, however it’s blighted by large inequality.
Observers ask whether or not Swapo would possibly undergo the identical destiny as different events in Southern Africa that liberated their nations from colonial or white minority rule, however have been rejected by voters this yr.
Namibia’s electoral points come as Mozambique is engulfed in violent unrest after the long-ruling Frelimo celebration was declared the winner of an election in October, prompting claims of vote rigging and inflicting persevering with violent protests in opposition to the celebration.
