KATIMA MULILO – Voters woke up as early as 6 o’clock in the morning to go and cast their votes in the long awaited presidential and National Assembly elections contested by 16 political parties and nine presidential candidates.
Most polling stations in the Zambezi did not experience any major problems and the long queues comprised of the young and old.
Zambezi Regional Governor Lawrence Sampofu cast his vote at 07h00 at Ngweze community hall, which was one of the fixed polling stations in the Zambezi.
The voting process in Katima Mulilo was also accompanied by some showers immediately when voting began, forcing many voters who had queued up outside the hall to rush inside.
Sampofu cast his vote together with the local authority leadership that included the town’s mayor Charles Matengu.
Minister of Labour and Social Welfare Doreen Sioka was also seen voting and she was contented with the large turnout and the voting itself.
“I am happy. People are calm but also very anxious at the same time to vote,” stated Sioka.
At Greenwell Matongo Combined School where a large number of voters was also observed, three young women – Manga Saisai, Matengu Mwaka and Monde Bainga – were not fazed by the three-hour wait and were eager to cast their votes, noting that voting for the first time was not only an exciting moment but an opportunity to secure their future.
“We came here past seven when the polls opened and have been here for more than three hours without voting, but we will continue to wait. We want to vote because by doing so we’re securing our future,” said one of the young people who have come to be known as the born frees.
Other old voters such as Chuma Shamwazi were however not happy with the process stating that it went at a snail’s pace.
“The process is very slow. We came here around past six before the officials even arrived but up to now we have not yet voted. This is very slow compared to the previous elections,” complained Shamwazi.
The presiding officer for Greenwell Matongo fixed polling station Kahimbi Liswaniso noted that long queues were caused by glitches experienced with the verifying machines, adding that at times they had to be reset to function well. “Everything is going well but we have problems with the verification machines as they are failing to read information. We have to sometimes switch them on and off for them to work,” said Liswaniso.
A similar problem was reported at the Chotto clinic fixed polling station.
At Gunkwe about 30 kilometres west of Katima Mulilo in the Linyanti constituency, the electronic voting machine for the National Assembly election failed to work for over 30 minutes when the polls opened but was later fixed by one of the Indian IT technicians deployed in the region. Some polling stations such as Liselo opened a few minutes late after experiencing similar problems.
Efforts to get comment from Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) regional coordinator Alfred Mbukusa proved futile as his mobile phone remained switched off over the weekend.
Zambezi had over 70 fixed polling stations and close to 40 mobile polling teams.
By George Sanzila