KASOTE – As voters flocked to vote on Friday they saw the Swapo flag hoisted in a tree at a polling station at Kasote in the party’s stronghold Rundu Urban constituency in Kavango East on the outskirts of Rundu.
Though the EVM (electronic voting machine) process was praised by many voters as fast and effective some voters expressed dissatisfaction with the tree at the polling station having a Swapo flag in it, saying this was in breach of the electoral code of conduct.
“We didn’t see the (Swapo) flag,” Mike the presiding officer at the polling station at Kasote said upon inquiry.
Polling stations are not supposed to have party colours in their vicinity as stipulated by the Electoral Act that also criminalises the vandalism of opponents’ campaign materials and prohibits voter intimidation.
“It is bad, nobody is allowed to have your party colours neither on your car nor wherever when you come close to the voting station and now here we are standing not even a metre away from where the people are casting their votes and the (Swapo) flag is hanging there, this is wrong,” said DTA secretary general Vincent Kanyetu while pointing at the tree with the Swapo Party flag.
Despite the ruling party flag at the polling station Kanyetu expressed satisfaction with the pace of the voting process.
“In terms of the time that one takes after being verified as an eligible voter, the time is really short,” said the DTA secretary general.
He noted that if the pace continued at the speed it was Namibia would host one of the fastest elections ever recorded.
Kanyetu was also not happy with some polling officials who allegedly asked voters to which party they belonged because this intimidated and unnerved elderly voters.
He said: “Some might feel intimidated and since the polling official is from the government they might get scared. We didn’t expect to have such incidents considering the fact we had voter education. How can presiding officials at polling stations ask people who they want to vote for?”
The flag was later removed by polling officials after journalists pointed to the anomaly though the presiding officer feigned ignorance about not having seen the flag at the polling station.
By John Muyamba