The elections presented as the most contested in the history of my Namibia are turning into an organizational disaster: the vote was indefinitely prolonged by the electoral commission in the face of immense lines of voters still waiting after the polls closed at 9:00 p.m. local time (7:00 p.m. GMT) .
Is this an indication of high participation which would be a bad signal for Swapo, the party in power since independence in 1990, more challenged than ever? Its candidate Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, in a position to become the first female president of this southern African country, could be forced into an unprecedented second round.
In the polling station at the town hall of the capital, Windhoek, as in countless others across the country, operations stopped for lack of ballots. After an hour’s break, applause to greet the arrival of the blocks of paper woke up the voters dozing while seated at 11:30 p.m.
“It’s heartbreaking to wait for hours and hours and there are failures like a shortage of ballots. The voters came, but the electoral commission betrayed us,” laments Reagan Cooper, farmer of 43 years old among the hundred castaways of the night in front of the town hall.
Armed with patience, folding chairs and umbrellas to overcome lines moving at a pachyderm’s pace, Namibians sometimes waited up to twelve hours, under a blazing sun before being able to vote.
The tablets used to verify identities using fingerprints have experienced incidents in several offices: untimely updates, overheating or flat batteries, their managers explained to AFP.
The Independent Patriots Party (IPC), the main opposition party, accused the electoral commission of “deliberately trying to dissuade voters from voting”, through its secretary general Christine Aochamus.
– Long night –
Faced with criticism from all parties – Swapo included – the commission decided to extend the vote “without specified duration”, indicated its head for the Windhoek region Rakondjerua Kavari.
Swapo candidate Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah (“NNN”), a 72-year-old figure in the struggle for liberation, called on the 1.5 million registered voters to “vote in numbers” when casting their ballot from the opening.
“NNN” faces competition from ex-dentist and lawyer Panduleni Itula, 67, who founded his own party, the Independent Patriots Party, in 2020. Without training to rely on at the time, he gathered 29.4% of the vote in 2019.
Massive unemployment, persistent inequalities and generational renewal have eroded support for Swapo in this desert territory of southern Africa which is among the world’s leading suppliers of uranium.
“My father was a liberation hero. I will not abandon Swapo, it is my family. But I want it to be challenged to improve public policies”, testifies Marvyn Pescha, a self-entrepreneur from 50 years old, resident of Katutura, the main township of Windhoek. “Certain opportunistic leaders have tarnished the reputation of the party by using it for personal enrichment,” he regrets.
A second round of presidential elections is for the first time a “fairly realistic option”, according to Henning Melber, researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala (Sweden).
After immortalizing her first experience as a voter by photographing her thumb blued by indelible ink, Sophia Varela, 24, confides that she “hopes for change” and “work for young people”, so numerous in this country where more than 60% of the population is under 30 years old.
At the end of three decades of rule by Swapo, a Marxist-inspired movement from the time of the struggle against the occupation of apartheid South Africa, Namibia remains, according to the World Bank, the second largest country most unequal on the planet, after South Africa.
“The abundant mining activity does not really translate” into “employment opportunities,” observes independent analyst Marisa Lourenço. In 2018, the year of the latest figures released, 46% of 18-34 year olds were unemployed.
Swapo, which fought for the country’s independence, may fear the same fate as its sister liberation parties in the region, weakened like the ANC in South Africa or swept aside like the BDP in Botswana.
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