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.
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