By Kuvee Kangueehi
Rundu
The returning officer for the Rundu Rural West Constituency election, Thomas Shapi, has urged residents of the constituency to go to the polling stations early in the morning to avoid being caught in the rains in the late afternoons.
Shapi said the Okavango Region has received some showers in the last couple of days especially in the afternoons and thus voters must be at the polling stations from 07h00 to avoid rains and long queues in the afternoon.
He said due to the vast size of the area, some voters will be expected to travel up to three kilo-metres to reach the nearest polling station and thus they should try to be at the polling stations as early as possible.
Shapi told New Era yesterday that no hiccups have been reported so far and everything is going as planned.
“The registration process, training of election officers and party agents have been completed and all the participating parties have expressed satisfaction.”
He said all the teams will be dispatched today to the various points. There will be nine fixed polling stations, while four mobile teams will visit 21 polling stations.
Shapi added that the voting starts at 07h00 and ends at 21h00, but noted that if there are still people in the queue after 21h00 they will still be allowed to vote.
The returning officer further noted that all the ballot boxes would be transported to the Rudolf Ngondo Primary School after the voting for counting.
Shapi said he expects the results to be out by early Saturday morning.
The Okavango Region is one of the most densely populated regions in the country and according to the national census of 2001 has a population of 202ǟ