Poll Problems

On the 27th and 28th of November people all over Namibia voted for their preferred political party, in the fourth general election since independence. The results were announced on Friday the 4th of December, and to few people’s surprise the party which will continue to lead the country is SWAPO.
President Hifikepunye Pohamba and the SWAPO party were both re-elected with over 75% of the votes. Fourteen political parties competed for seats in the National Assembly of Namibia, and twelve candidates ran for presidency.
In total, 812,233 Namibians voted during the elections. Out of the thirteen opposing political parties, nine of them did not accept the results because of the delay between the voting and announcements, which was a lot longer than in previous years. They filed a case with the High Court on the 4th of January to order the ECN to make the ballot available to them to scrutinise for possible rigging. On the 14th of January the nine parties laid their findings before court, and we are still awaiting the courts decision.
Thankfully the elections didn’t cause much violent behaviour in Luderitz, and the rumoured alcohol ban didn’t happen either which I’m sure many people were pleased about. However some schools and work places in Luderitz were closed during the elections for the safety of the children and employees while travelling.
The new political party, a breakaway party from SWAPO, RDP seemed to gain a lot of support within the town, but not quite as much as SWAPO which was proven when the results came out. RDP is now SWAPO’s official competition, so we will see how this affects elections in coming years.•