TSUMEB – A couple of days before the start of registration of voters, the police and church leaders in Oshikoto regions found themselves discussing the critical question of to whom should congregants listen: the police encouragement to vote or certain pastors’ admonition to their church members not to vote because of a lack of faith in the voting process.
This was a topic of discussion in a meeting between Oshikoto Regional Commander Anna-Marie Nainda and the men of the cloth from 30 different churches in the Tsumeb area on Monday.
“Isolated information has reached the police that some pastors are discouraging voting among their congregation, citing their lack of faith in the voting process as reasons behind them discouraging members of their churches from voting,” said Nainda on pastors discouraging their congregation from voting.
“I wanted to explain to the pastors the constitutional rights of those who are under their leadership. On the contrary, all the 30 pastors that are in attendance believe in the election process and in electing their leaders. Some pastors even mentioned that they are encouraging church members to register and to vote. Those were just rumours that we wanted to clear out before they cause unnecessary damage to the reputation of churches in general,” Nainda said.
Nainda further informed the pastors that voting was a constitutional right and that no one has the right “to state, imply, infer directly or indirectly or influence other people to reach the conclusion that they should not vote. If a church member wants to vote nobody can prohibit such a person from voting.”
None of the 30 pastors who were present laid claim to the allegations.
They did however mention their willingness to assist the police in whichever way they could. The pastors pledged to assist the police with spiritual counselling and urged the police to go to church for guidance.
The gathered pastors raised their concern about the violent crimes of passion and asked government to re-introduce religious studies in schools as it will help fight the moral decay in society.
By John Travolter Matali