The regional council and local authority elections preliminary results, which continue to be announced at collation centres on Thursday evening, indicate that the Swapo Party is leading.
Swapo Khomas regional coordinator Elliot Mbako has expressed confidence in the party reclaiming the region, particularly the Windhoek Rural constituency which was under the Landless People's Movement (LPM).
"We have certainly won back most parts of the region and that illustrates our commitment and hard work we have put in to ensure Swapo reclaims lost localities such as Lüderitz, Mariental, Keetmanshoop, Swakopmund and Walvis Bay."
He cautions that these are just preliminary results and that the true picture will be painted once the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) officially announces the results.
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Mbako believes service delivery is the factor that secured victory for Swapo.
The current preliminary results indicate that Swapo is leading the way in the Katutura East constituency, with candidate Richard Gaoseb leading by 2 227, followed by Samson Hochobeb of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), with 622 votes.
Julius Tsuseb of the United Democratic Movement (UDF) garnered 420 votes, the Popular Democratic Movement's (PDM) Violet Geinus received 123 votes, while independent candidates (IC) Else Ndapandula Chen and Izaak Swartz each got 103 votes.
This brings the total votes cast to 3 075, and registered voters at 14 780 (turnout of 20.8%)
In the Katutura Central constituency, PDM returning councillor Vezemba Katjaimo got 2 022 votes, while Swapo's candidate Muesee came second with 1 421, followed by independent candidate Evert Kandundu with 1 040 votes.
The UDF received 114 votes, IPC got 662, LPM - 143, United Namibians Party (UNP) - 106, and Swanu of Namibia - 44.
In the John Pandeni constituency, the preliminary results show that Swapo received 2 049 votes, LPM - 576, PDM - 456, Affirmative Repositioning - 246, while People United for Change only managed to get 23 votes.
The ECN has indicated that official results will be announced at a later stage, once the preliminary results have been verified at coalition centres.
The LPM's spokesperson says the party cannot pronounce itself based on preliminary results and would only do so after the official announcement has been made by the commission.
In the local authority elections, Swapo got 2 417 votes (four seats), IPC - 1 315 votes (two seats), PDM - 210 votes (one seat), National Empowerment Fighting Corruption (NEFC) - 176 votes, and the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF) - 25 votes.
This brings the total votes cast to 4 143, and seven seats.
Swapo held 19 seats during the 2020 election in the Erongo region, and five seats in the Khomas region.
The IPC held 13 seats in Erongo and four seats in Khomas.
In 2020, the regional council and local authority election turnout reached only 37% for local authority elections, and 43% for regional council elections, compared to 60% in the 2019 national election.
Walvis Bay Rural constituency Swapo district coordinator Patrick Bathromeus says they have done exceptionally well according to the preliminary results, however, data from three polling stations still needs to be captured.
"We have done really well to reclaim the constituency but it is still early days but the results look promising," he says.
The ECN announced in September that about 1.5 million Namibians registered as voters in the elections.
The Khomas region recorded the highest number of registered voters, at 287 085, followed by the Omusati, Erongo and Ohangwena regions with over 140 000 registered voters each.
IPC spokesperson Imms Nashinge blames the ECN's "chaos and the 2024 presidential election turmoil on the low voter apathy during this year's local authority and regional council elections".
"Those responsible should be held responsible for causing this discouragement and apathy among voters. If your constituency has 40 000 registered voters and only 1 000 came, who is to be blamed?"
Nashinge also blamed the ECN for forcing voters to travel back to vote in their respective constituencies as a reason for the low voter turnout.
According to him, voters registered at Okakarara and based at Lüderitz could not vote due to the travel expenses.
"Who was going to pay for all the travel expenses?" he questioned.
PDM president McHenry Venaani has told The Namibian the party's priority was to focus on putting all their resources into targeting the regional elections and gaining five seats.
"Now, you would agree with me that we probably are the only party that has gained close to five seats in the regional elections. We have done that by gaining one extra important seat that signals that our bases are strong," he says.
The party's strategy, according to Venaani, was born out of experience as an official opposition party for the last 10 years and knowing the ruling party's tactics to cripple parties at regional level.
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The ruling party's tactic, allegedly, is to use voter apathy and the weakness of official opposition parties at grassroots level every five years.
This was the case for parties such as the Congress of Democrats, who served as the official opposition party in 2004, and the Rally for Democracy and Progress from 2009.
"And this is how they took out all these parties every five years, they would take out an official opposition. And I tell you, I am the longest serving opposition leader for more than 10 years, the longest in the country," he says.
The party has gained extra seats in Bethanie and Berseba in the IIKharas Region, areas where the party used to have one seat, and gained a seat at Lüderitz.
However, PDM's results do not look good in Windhoek, Walvis Bay and Swakopmund.
This may be due to the party being at the forefront of bad publicity with several members leaving the party mere months before elections
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