Farmers urged to allow election officials on farms

The Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU) is working with the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) to raise awareness among commercial farmers of the importance of allowing election officials access to their farms to conduct voter education and registrations.

This was confirmed to The Namibian by NAU spokesperson Tanja Dahl on Wednesday.

“We have sent messages to our members to give access to officials conducting this national duty,” she said.

This comes after the ECN made an appeal to commercial farmers to allow election officials access to their farms to conduct voter education and registrations.

According to the latest issue of the NAU newsletter released last week, the ECN, which is conducting the general registration of voters, had reached out to the NAU to raise awareness among its members about this national exercise.

Commenting on the issue, ECN spokesperson De Wet Siluka said the commission was collaborating with the NAU to raise awareness among its members on the importance of the exercise.

“This is a national exercise and everyone, including farmers, is obligated to cooperate and make the work of the officials smoother,” he said.

The ECN has scheduled voter registration to take place between 3 June and 1 August, with the Presidential and National Assembly elections set for 27 November. These activities are scheduled intermittently between March and 27 November, the newsletter added.

“One of the key responsibilities of the commission is to conduct civic and voter education ahead of both voter registration and elections.

“The voter and civic education campaign commenced on 7 March and involves the conduct of daily face-to-face information dissemination sessions with all communities nationwide, including those residing and working on commercial farms,” said the ECN.

The elections supervisory authority stressed that these endeavours aim to raise awareness among the electorate regarding the registration process and the prerequisites for registering and voting.

“In continuing our commitment to supervising, managing and overseeing the execution of free, fair, credible and impartial electoral processes, we are reaching out to the NAU, as a key stakeholder, to notify their members about these significant electoral events and to ensure access for our officials to these establishments.

“All Namibian citizens who have reached 18 years and above are required to register as voters, irrespective of whether they have registered before or not,” said the ECN.

Officials conducting national programmes have sometimes faced hostility at some commercial farms where they have been denied access.

Last year, the NAU reportedly urged its members to collaborate with Population and Housing Census enumerators, and also condemned the harassment of enumerators by some farmers.

This was after after several videos showing the harassment of enumerators by some farmers went viral.