‘How many voters are there really?’

THE Namibian Democratic Movement for Change would like to call upon the Electoral Commission of Namibia as a matter of urgency to pronounce itself on the real figures of all registered voters.

While the Chairman of the ECN was at pains to blame what he termed some opposition parties who are bent on discrediting the electoral body at a press conference, the current figures given to us on Saturday afternoon on a CDROM brings more confusion then anything else, and more than anything else poses more questions of a credibility nature.

The Namibia DMC is puzzled let alone confused with the now current figure of close to 971 thousands given as registered voters and we would like to know whether we have 1.3 million or 1.6 million or 961 000 registered voters in this country. In the interest of a credible election later this month it is crucially important for the ECN to provide this nation with an accurate figure of how many people are actually registered.

We want to put it on record that with the current confusion that reigns on the actual number of registered voters the jury is still out whether on election day we will have more or less then the final tally given to us by the ECN of 971 thousands voters. In the interest of transparency and credibility let us have the final and correct figure of how many people are registered.

On the other side of the just ended election for the seagoing personnel both in Walvisbaai and Lüderitz. It is disturbing that how can over 7 000 people be registered voters and only 1 600 went and actually cast their votes in Walvisbaai.

More then anything else this is a clear demonstration that although those parties that managed to get some votes are celebrating, this absenteeism clearly is a sign that our citizens have lost hope and trust in the current leadership for clearly they don’t see how any of the political parties will better their lives.

This should be a wake up call to all politicians in this country that the people have lost total confidence in us as politicians, for we do make promises on the eve of the elections only to forget it once we are in air conditioned offices.

It is time to go back to the kind of politics that is driven by the desire to serve and not the politics of the belly. Political parties should indeed brace themselves for more of this type of trend were many decide to stay at home, unless we change our focus and start to really address the plight of the ordinary citizens of this country.

The secretary general of Namibia DMC, Mr. Joseph Kauandenge