Namibians began voting yesterday in general elections expected to see the ruling South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) return to power, despite a tough challenge from a new breakaway party.
Scores of people formed long queues outside voting stations across the country before polls opened at 7am.
Nambian President Hifikepunye Pohamba is seeking a second term in office, with his main competition posed by the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP).
Former foreign minister Hidipo Hamutenya launched the new party two years ago, after he lost his bid to take over SWAPO following the retirement of liberation leader Sam Nujoma in 2004.
The two are the biggest of the 12 parties contesting the presidency, with RDP claiming about 250,000 supporters from an estimated 1.1 million voters.
DISSATISFACTION
Hamutenya was a popular figure within SWAPO, and he hopes to tap into dissatisfaction with the ruling party, which has ruled since independence in 1990.
“Everything is ready, the ballot boxes and election staff have been dispatched to all thirteen regions of Namibia,” Rukkie Tjingaete, spokesman for the Electoral Commission of Namibia told reporters on Thursday.
No major organizational or logistic hiccups had been encountered in the preparations for the country’s fourth elections since independence, he said.
Five years ago SWAPO took three-fourths of the vote for both president and parliament — the same result as the 1999 polls. The RDP doesn’t expect to win, but does hope to become the main opposition party.
Tensions between the two parties have occasionally turned to stonings and intimidation against the RDP.
But overall the election campaign has not been very energetic, with SWAPO praising roads, clinics and classrooms built in the past five years by its own government, but being vague about future targets.
FEES
Most opposition parties promise free education, appealing to the poorest Namibians whose children often drop out because they cannot afford the much-hated “school development fees.”
The opposition also say they will fight corruption and nepotism in government.
Voters receive one ballot to select a party for parliament and one to vote directly for presidential candidates.
Polling stations will reopen today for a second day of voting.
For the first time, counting will start directly after voting and results will be posted on the outside of each polling station. However, verified and final results will officially be announced several days later.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
RSS