Voting ‘on track’ at Opuwo,

ELECTIONS officials were by midday yesterday confident that most of the people in Opuwo would have voted by the end of the day despite a computer glitch that delayed polling for more than an hour at one centre.

Voting at Opuwo, 700 km north-west of Windhoek, kicked off in jerks and stops but the elections regional co-ordinator for Kunene, Isaskar Sipho Ganeb, said polling in the rest of the region was going smoothly. Mwayalwa Tjarimbua, who said he had been at the Multi Purpose Youth Centre polling station since 04h00 and the sixth in the queue, was getting agitated.No one had told him why voting had not started at 07h00 sharp.”I wanted to go to Oshakati to do some work,” Tjarimbua complained, “but now it means I lost that time.The leaders [elections officials] say the computers are not working.”Ndikuhole Ipinge, a breast-feeding mother, had also hoped to vote before 08h00 so that she could rush home to cook for her family.Voting here started only at 08h15 after the computer snag had been corrected.Johannes Ne Tjahera slumped into a plastic chair, upset that the elections officers were putting him through a similar waiting process as during the May municipal election.”We came at 05h00 again and, what time is it?, 07h50 we have not voted yet.Apparently the computer is broken.Why did they leave the voters‚ roll when they know computers break all the time? We are not happy at all,” said Tjahera.Presiding officer Johnson Kambausuka put the jerky start down to the fact that it was the first day of voting and a “technical problem” with the computer.The computer error caused a slight delay at another station, but by 10h30 about 200 people had voted at each of the three centres at Opuwo.Voters queued patiently and entered the makeshift booth composed of school tables to mark their crosses for both the National Assembly and Presidential elections.Mwayalwa Tjarimbua, who said he had been at the Multi Purpose Youth Centre polling station since 04h00 and the sixth in the queue, was getting agitated.No one had told him why voting had not started at 07h00 sharp.”I wanted to go to Oshakati to do some work,” Tjarimbua complained, “but now it means I lost that time.The leaders [elections officials] say the computers are not working.”Ndikuhole Ipinge, a breast-feeding mother, had also hoped to vote before 08h00 so that she could rush home to cook for her family.Voting here started only at 08h15 after the computer snag had been corrected.Johannes Ne Tjahera slumped into a plastic chair, upset that the elections officers were putting him through a similar waiting process as during the May municipal election.”We came at 05h00 again and, what time is it?, 07h50 we have not voted yet.Apparently the computer is broken.Why did they leave the voters‚ roll when they know computers break all the time? We are not happy at all,” said Tjahera.Presiding officer Johnson Kambausuka put the jerky start down to the fact that it was the first day of voting and a “technical problem” with the computer.The computer error caused a slight delay at another station, but by 10h30 about 200 people had voted at each of the three centres at Opuwo.Voters queued patiently and entered the makeshift booth composed of school tables to mark their crosses for both the National Assembly and Presidential elections.