More than one million vote in Namibia’s shambolic election

More than one million Namibians voted in the presidential and National Assembly elections, with a turnout of 74.21%, according to the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN).

This is out of a total of 1 449 569 registered voters in 121 constituencies across the country.

The ECN has so far announced results of 79 constituencies for both the presidential and parliamentary election.

WORRIES OVER SPOILED BALLOTS

Political analyst Ndumba Kamwanyah told The Namibian yesterday that the high number of spoiled ballots in the election is worrisome.
The ECN confirmed that 19 000 votes were invalidated because of spoiled ballots.

“It undermines the efforts of voters and questions the effectiveness of voter education and the electoral process.

This highlights the need for comprehensive civic and voter education to ensure citizens understand how to correctly cast their ballots,” Kamwanya said.

According to him, damaged votes occur when they are improperly marked before being cast.

“A spoiled vote occurs when a ballot is damaged or improperly marked before it is cast. It is not placed in the ballot box and is replaced with a new one. A rejected vote, on the other hand, is cast but later disqualified during counting due to unclear or improper marking.

“As for classification, votes are classified as spoiled or rejected based on specific criteria, such as illegible markings or multiple selections where only one is allowed,” he said.

In the National Assembly election, more than 1 160 000 voters out of nearly 1 450 000 braced the long and slow queues to pick their preferred political party lawmakers.

The information contained on the official results site of the ECN does not indicated the voter turnout before some polling stations were reopened for voting on Friday and Saturday.

In the latest results released by the ECN, Swapo’s Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has taken an early lead with 54.82% after 50% of the votes were announced, with over 500 000 outstanding.

Independent Patriots for Change’s Panduleni Itula was at 29.09% and Landless People’s Movement’s Bernadus Swartbooi at 6.34%.

– Additional reporting by TRACY TAFIRENYIKA