Youth in Tsumkwe maintain their protest over the census candidate list and demand answers.
In Tsumkwe, the youth community continued their demonstration this morning, expressing their dissatisfaction with the supplementary list of candidates for this year’s National Population and Housing Census. The group’s chairperson, Simson Kapembe, revealed that the list was meant to undergo verification involving the councillor’s office and two youth representatives.
Their allegation is that only seven youth representatives were selected from the group that protested, and they are adamant that the list attached to their petition should be given serious consideration.
“People only selected those from their households that they know; they did not consider the petition that we gave them; the petition has everyone who speaks the local languages; the new list only has seven names of those who speak our languages. The rest of the people have just been handpicked.”
The protesters have announced their determination to persist in their demonstrations until they engage with an authoritative figure. The youth, mostly comprising the San and Hai||om communities, have issued a warning that they may disrupt the census counting process if their demands are not met.
In Tsintsabis’ Guinas Constituency, a number of youth also staged a protest before they were interrupted by a member of the police. Despite the warning that they had gathered illegally, the youth remained adamant. No one from their constituency was selected, and part of the group’s protest is against claims that census workers were selected from one ethnic group only.
One of the protestors who spoke to nbc News on condition of anonymity later in the afternoon informed us that an NSA representative later held a meeting with the protestors and agreed to add 13 people from the constituency to the list.
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