The ECN has been able to register 290,600 voters through this year’s Supplementary Voter Registration compared to only 82,321 who registered in the 2004 Supplementary Voter Registration. This represents a phenomenal record increase of 253% across the board. It must also be noted that these results exclude that of Namibian citizens abroad whose results have not been received yet.

This improvement can be attributed to the ECN’s commitment to hard work and the resources that we have invested in both Voter Education campaign and Supplementary Voter Registration. Despite recent critics and doubts, many Namibians flocked to the registration points to register and they have been able to receive their voting cards. Part of this success can also be attributed to the improved partnership between the ECN, media institutions, Government, civic organizations and political parties that supported our voter education campaigns or in some cases conducted their own education programs to motivate people to register.

These impressive figures clearly testify to an increased interest and enthusiasm in this year’s elections contrary to the voter apathy which is falsely professed through sensational and selective reporting of the negative by some of the print media. Equally, our information campaigns have helped to raise awareness and understanding of elections as a measure of democratic participation.

To demonstrate the excellent performance of this year’s Supplementary Voter Registration compared to that of 2004, the following TABLE provides comparative figures broken down according to regions and percentage increase.

REGION - 2004 - 2009
Caprivi - 3,997 - 12,574
Erongo- 6,327 - 18,257
Hardap - 2,475- 8,794
Karas - 3,236 - 13,101
Kavango - 12,638 - 23,971
Khomas - 5,131 - 52,078
Kunene 4,793 15,764
Ohangwena 11,118 31,643
Omaheke- 3,916- 13,326
Omusati - 12,414 - 32,657
Oshana- 8,204 - 28,255
Oshikoto - 3,082 - 23,642
Otjozondjupa - 4,990 - 16,538

GRAND TOTAL - 82,321 - 290,600

The data also reveals that the Khomas Region ranks the highest with a total of 52,078 followed by Omusati with 32,657 and Ohangwena with a total of 31,643 in the number of voters generated through the recently concluded Supplementary Voter Registration.

In 2004, a total of 978,036 Namibians registered to vote while our preliminary figures generally indicate that more than 1,300,500 Namibians may be eligible to vote in this year’s Presidential and General Assembly Elections. This could represent an increase of 24.8 percent of eligible voters in general. However, this will only be confirmed once the process of data capture is completed.

And now that both the Continuous and Supplementary registration processes have been successfully completed with such impressive results, the ECN would like to urge Namibians to turn-out in large numbers at the voting points to cast their votes. They should guard against detractors of the electoral process who do not want to see Namibia emerge as one of the most advanced democracies in Africa. We should demonstrate tolerance while embracing each other as citizens of a country that the world is looking up to since we were franchised to vote for the first time in November 1989 through the UN supervised elections. Since then, we have been able to conduct our own elections in the most credible fashion. There will always be challenges