KATIMA MULILO – The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) will issue duplicate voter cards to eligible voters who lost or damaged their voter cards, ahead of the 17 June 2025 by-election in the Kabbe South constituency.
According to Kahimbi Masule, ECN’s returning officer for the scheduled by-election in the constituency, duplicate voter cards will be issued at the constituency office at Nakabolelwa from Tuesday until Thursday this week.
The exercise will run at the same time as the five-day training of 128 trainee polling officials at Katima Mulilo.
Masule informed Nampa on Monday that the training will cover topics such as the electoral laws, voter verification, special procedures, closing of polls and counting process, as well as election results upload and transmission, among others.
She said ECN will also hold a stakeholder meeting tomorrow at the constituency office at Nakabolelwa to deliberate on issues such as ECN’s preparedness, polling points, special voting, elections agents, logistics, deployment, polling station design and demobilisation.
“I’m humbly appealing to the registered voters who lost or damaged their voter cards to get duplicates at the constituency office from 10 June to 12 June 2025. The procedure is simple, and those who are affected need to get a police declaration and an identity document before this duplicate can be reprinted and issued,” she said.
Kabbe South has over 3 500 registered voters.
The by-election in Kabbe South was necessitated by the resignation of former constituency councillor John Likando in March, who was appointed to serve in the National Assembly.
Likewise, the commission yesterday started reprinting and issuing duplicate voter cards for the Otjiwarongo and Grootfontein constituencies by-elections, in the Otjozondjupa region.
This is according to ECN’s Otjozondjupa regional voter education officer, Beatrice Sililo who informed Nampa on Monday that only those with lost or damaged cards will receive duplicate voter cards.
“The reprinting and issuance of these duplicates will take place from 10 June until 12 June 2025 at the Otjiwarongo and Grootfontein constituencies from 08h00 until 17h00 on those three days,” she explained.
She urged all those in need of their duplicates to take along a police declaration and an original identity card and gave assurance that the process is easy and fast, as all details are already captured in the ECN system. “As soon as the applicant’s name is entered into the computer, their details will appear on the screen, and ECN officials will press the print button for the card to be generated.”
About 27 870 people in the Otjiwarongo constituency are eligible to vote, and 18 231 in Grootfontein constituency. Voters in these two constituencies will cast their votes on 17 June 2025 to elect their new constituency councillors, after their former constituency councillors Marlayn Mbakera for Otjiwarongo and Elder Filipe of Grootfontein joined Parliament on 21 March 2025.
-Nampa