WINDHOEK – The director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) Graham Hopwood says he does not expect much change in the outcome of the 2014 parliamentary and presidential elections.
The 2014 elections are slated for November.
He said that since 1994 the Swapo Party has maintained its 72 percent dominance, which is “quite amazing” and a fairly exceptional consistency when compared to the performance of political parties in power in other countries.
He was speaking at an election workshop that New Era Publication Corporation held on Friday in Windhoek for its editorial staff.
He said the poor turnout of supporters at the recent Swapo manifesto launch at the Sam Nujoma Stadium was not necessarily an interpretation that the ruling party was losing support.
Moreover, he said minority parties have mostly tapped into each other’s support base and have not made much impact, which is also evident in the recently held by-elections in different constituencies – with the exception of Nudo which won in its stronghold Otjinene as expected.
The IPPR director said it would be interesting to see what happens in the Windhoek-West Constituency by-election in the next few weeks as urban voters are more likely to shift their votes.
He added that the high voter registration figure indicates that Namibians believe in democracy and are engaged at the basic level of democracy but not in participatory democracy.
On the issue of sworn statements produced for someone who does not have proper identification, he said the provision could be abused as non-Namibians could use the opportunity to register and vote illegally.
In addition, he said the Electoral Commission of Namibia’s (ECN) relaxation of documents required for local authority elections is also open to abuse.
He said another issue that could pose problems during elections are the newly introduced electronic voting machines (EVMs) which do not have a paper trail back-up system.
He said it would also be tougher for new parties to come in if a new quota is introduced where parties are required to have at least 3 500 members split evenly over seven regions to prove they have national interest and are not ethnically based.
On manifestos, he said that political parties do not do a good job when presenting it and the documents are not easily available, while promises made are very generalized and not specific.