The special voting process in Katima Mulilo has been reported to be a success so far, with a high turnout as soon as the venue opened its doors.
Law enforcement officers from all eight constituencies of the Zambezi Region turned up to cast their votes at the Ngweze community hall, the only venue hosting special voting in the region.
The regional electoral officer, Lesley Simwanza, informed the nbc News team that the only challenge was that some political parties did not provide a list of agents on time.
“They were supposed to fill out a form, which we call Form 15, in advance so that we know who they are so that we don’t have any problems when they enter, so we found that there were one or two parties who didn’t fill out that form because it didn’t have a stand. We told them to fill it in, scan it to Windhoek for a stamp, and bring it back so we can allow them in.”
Simwanza noted that some parties had chosen not to send observers at all, while some law enforcement agencies, such as the NDF and the Police, failed to provide a specific list of voters.
“We allowed them to come in as long as they came with appointment certificates, IDs, and voter cards; with that, we allowed them to go in.”
Despite the queues slowing down just before noon, the ECN was expecting that it would pick up after hours, calling on those who still had not made it to the venue to do so before the doors closed at 21:00
Counting of the votes will begin as soon as the polls close at 9 o’clock, and results are expected to be posted at the venue shortly thereafter.