Citizens urged to register to vote as supplementary registration exercise draws near
The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN), Advocate Notemba Tjipueja, at a press conference held this week said the commission is prepared for the 2019 Supplementary Voters Registration, which will take place from 8 to 27 July.
Tjipueja said the registration will be conducted over 18 days ahead of the Presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled to take place on 27 November.
“We have also successfully recruited a total number of 4488 registration officials from which 671 teams were composed to serve 4069 registration points spread over the 14 regions and 121 Constituencies country wide,” she added.
She said that the people selected from the recruitment drive are a combination of unemployed youth and other people with electoral expertise experience.
“I am happy to inform the nation that for the first time in our electoral history no single government official was recruited during this process, except for Foreign Mission staff, who are obliged by our Electoral Law to assist in providing services for registration and polling at all Namibian Foreign Missions,” she explained.
With regard to the logistical preparations she confirmed that the in country registration materials have already been dispatched to the respective regions, the registration material for the 34 diplomatic missions have already been dispatched and received without any challenge, all regional logistic stores have already been operational as from 21 June, the deployment of 671 registration teams is expected to take place from 6 to 7 July, in both in country and at diplomatic missions and all registration venues have been identified, verified and secured in all 121 constituencies.
“The final voter’s registers are expected to be published in the Government Gazette on 25 October and election date, names of returning officers and the nomination date for political party candidates will be published in the Gazzette on 30 September,” said Tjipueja.
Tjipueja said the 13 November has been determined as the date on which voting will take place at Namibia’s Foreign Mission as well as voting of sea going personnel.
“The ECN is urging all eligible Namibian, who do not already have a Voters card to go in droves to the registration points to register themselves,” concluded Tjipueja.
Currently the total number of voters on the National Voters’ Register as of 3 July 2019 stands at 1,235,020.
