AR wants to reduce voting age to 16

Affirmative Repositioning (AR) leader Job Amupanda says his party will reduce the voting age from 18 to 16 if elected.

Amupanda posted this on his social media accounts yesterday.

“At 16, called ‘age of consent’, children can have sex, get pregnant and become a father or mother. A year later, at 17, they can attend parents meetings at school,” he said.

He said minors are eligible to get national identity documents and open bank accounts, and at 17, they go to university and “stay on their own”.

According to Amupanda, the government does not allow minors to vote for members of parliaments and pesident, but his party will change that.

The Namibian Constitution says every citizen who has reached the age of eighteen shall have the right to vote.

A youth-centred AR was recently accused by young people of stealing their signatures to push for its registration as a political party at the Electoral Commission Namibia.