Monday, November 10, 2014

Namibia: Ruling SWAPO records landslide victory in bye-election

The Swapo party has retained the Endola constituency in the Ohangwena region after its candidate Ferdinand Shifidi won the recent by-election by a landslide.

Shifidi won the by-election with over 90% by obtaining 6 633 votes. Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) candidate Ehafo village headmen Hafeni Pius got 631 votes and Venda Denis Kahangu of CoD only managed 68 votes.

A total of 7 332 votes were cast during the by-election.

The number of voters increased slightly compared to those who voted in the 2010 elections where 6 848 people voted. Swapo won the 2010 elections with 6 149 votes, while RDP obtained 659 votes and CoD obtained 6 votes.

The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN), returning officer for the Endola by-elections Kertu Shipoke announced the results at around 01h00 on Saturday after all the polling stations closed at exactly 21h00 on Friday.

There were 23 polling stations with 17 teams and all the results were verified by of the three parties that took part in the by- elections.

At many of the polling stations visited by The Namibian, there were no hiccups or technical problems experienced with the use of the electronic voting machines (EVM).

However, the turnout by youths was still low at many of the polling stations, with the majority of voters being the elderly.

Lovisa Nicanor, a resident of Ohalushu was one of the voters who expressed satisfaction with the use of the EVMs, saying the process was very fast and easy to use and she did not experience any difficulties with the machines.

The Director of ECN, Paul Isaak told The Namibian that all the polling stations opened on time and he was very impressed with the general voter turnout.

“The elections were free, fair and credible. The voters' perception was also good but I want to urge the youth to cast their votes during the November elections in order to be able to invest in their future wisely,” he said.

There are about 30 000 inhabitants in Endola constituency, however, only 11 000 were registered as eligible voters and more than 45% of the registered voters are youths.


The Namibian

No comments:

Post a Comment