Namibia Votes, part 2

Line of people waiting to vote

  So, Friday was the election here in Namibia. We now know that SWAPO and Hage Geingob, as expected, did quite well. According to New Era, roughly 1.2 million votes were cast for 516 female and 623 male candidates from 16 parties fighting for 104 seats in the National Assembly. With roughly 41% of votes verified, Hage Geingob is sitting at over 80% in his quest to be the next president of Namibia, and SWAPO looks to have a major majority of National Assembly seats, in the mid-to-high 70s% range.

  Feel free to keep yourself updated on the exact numbers, but that's not what this post is about. What I am here to write about is the election day itself. But, I will start the night before. Thursday was Thanksgiving, as most of you know. Taylor, Den, and I decided to treat ourselves to a little dinner at the local lodge, and afterwards hit a local bar for a couple drinks. A number of people were wearing SWAPO-related articles of clothes, chanting slogans in the bar. Two cars, one with a UDF flag, the other with SWAPO colors, were parked out front, and were loading up to drive around rallying last-second support. For much of the night, I was hearing the horns of these "roving rallies".

My co-worker waiting to make her voice heard

  Friday morning, I was awoken by the sounds of the people lining up to vote. After making coffee, I made my way outside with my camera, just to get a glimpse. The line was long, easily over 50 people, and this was before the polls had even opened. By later in the day, it would get longer. It didn't help that they moved slowly, as the new voting machines took some getting used to (in fact, the voters themselves had to sit with election officials, who would help them work the machines, unlike the private and completely secret method of the States). A few entrepreneurs took advantage of the heat, selling ice pops (frozen sandwich bags of Oros) for N$1 each, people chatted, there were chairs. Unfortunately, we had no water, so there were no toilets for those waiting. As they would see me, various co-workers and friends would call me over, we'd chat a bit about what elections in the US are like, about the weather, and about the upcoming festive season. It was actually rather calm and friendly.

  Of course, it wouldn't stay that way. As I sit in my flat, 2 days later, the SWAPO victory celebration is going on. Cars speeding around, blasting music, swerving all over the road, honking their horns, flags flying, people chanting. A number of people have tried to sell me all their homemade SWAPO swag. During my brief trip to a bar last night (still no water, so I needed to borrow their bathroom), I was greeted by revelers.

Den

  So, what else did I do Friday? After all, I wasn't voting, and didn't plan to just sit in my flat all day. Well, around 11, I took my guitar and went over to my host family's place for a couple hours to play with the kids and hang out. Around 2, I left and stopped at the gas station for a meat pie, before returning to my flat for a short nap (those kids tire me out). And, in the evening, Taylor, Den, and I had a little picnic and watched the sunset. Overall, it was a pretty nice day.

  So, one question you may be asking is "how did the electronic voting go over?" Well, I obviously can't say for sure. For the most part, the people I talked to had no issue. It did seem take some of the privacy from voting, though not having been here for past elections, I can't say how secret those ballots were. One of the big issues was the time. New Era and The Namibian were posting polling picture pics on their Facebook pages, and from what I could make out, it seems voting went long past when it was supposed to end, possibly even until the next morning. Of course, this was the first time electronic ballots were used, so it isn't too much of a surprise that there were some hiccups. The Election Commission is considering moving away from one-day voting in the future to help with the lines.




  Now, while my personal experience ended up being quite pleasant, there were a few issues. The Namibian posted pictures of SWAPO flags being flown over polling stations, and there were some issues with people being drunk. For fuller coverage of these incidents, I highly recommend checking out the Facebook pages for The Namibian, New Era, and The Sun. There are some excellent photos (far better than my own), and more complete articles than the blurbs I've linked to.

  Overall, I'd say election day here wasn't too different from America. The biggest difference is that because Namibia takes longer to count the votes, you didn't have people huddled around TV watching as the news channels (or John Stewart/Steven Colbert) called each state. Sorry for this post not being particularly deep, but I do hope you found it a little interesting, and maybe even informative.

Votes being cast

Blind Mike, after voting, enjoying an ice