Local and regional elections were held in

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

on 25 November 2020 to elect new local and regional councils. The previous round of elections was held in 2015 and won by the ruling

SWAPO The South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO ; , SWAVO; , SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former independence movement in Namibia (formerly South West Africa). Founded in 1960, it has been ...

party.

Electoral system

Elections for regional councils are held using the

first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

electoral system. Voters in each constituency elect one councillor to represent them on their regional council. Local authority councillors are elected by a system of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

. Local authority candidate lists have

affirmative action Affirmative action (also sometimes called reservations, alternative access, positive discrimination or positive action in various countries' laws and policies) refers to a set of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking ...

requirements for women.

Election process

Although Namibia has 1.35 million registered voters, only about 370,000 have voter cards that specify their area of residence, a requirement to elect local and regional councillors. A supplementary voter registration, also for citizens that have turned 18 and those who have relocated, was conducted between 7 and 15 September 2020, and yielded 188,000 registrations. In April 2020, the Electoral Commission of Namibia announced that the national lockdown on account of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country would not affect the election date. The elections were conducted using paper ballots after the Supreme Court of Namibia ruled in February 2020 that without a paper trail, usage of

electronic voting machine An electronic voting machine is a voting machine based on electronics. Two main technologies exist: ''optical scan voting system, optical scanning'' and ''direct-recording electronic voting machine, direct recording'' (DRE). Optical scanning ...

s (EVMs) in elections contravened the Electoral Act of 2014.

Results

Regional council elections

Wahlkreise Regionalratswahlen Namibia 2020

For every of the 121

constituencies of Namibia Each of the 14 regions of Namibia is further subdivided into Electoral district, electoral constituencies. The size of the constituencies varies with the size and population of each region. There are currently 121 constituencies in Namibia. Th ...

one individual is elected to serve as constituency councillor and to represent their constituency in the respective regional council. The regional councils in turn select 3 representatives each to serve in the National Council. While the ruling SWAPO party nominated candidates in all constituencies and for all local councils, four constituencies had no opposition candidates at all: Mankumpi,

Nkurenkuru Nkurenkuru (1.093 m above sea level) is a town on the south-western banks of the Kavango River. It is the capital of the Kavango West Region of northern Namibia, located west of Rundu. It is also a former mission station of the Finnish Missio ...

, Tondoro and Uuvudhiya. There the SWAPO candidate was declared the winner. In the Mariental Rural constituency "serious procedural errors" were discovered. No initial result were announced, and the electoral court ordered a re-run. The re-run was conducted on 26 February 2021.

Local authority elections

Local elections determine the population of the village, town, and city councils and have a direct influence on who will become mayor, as this position is elected among all councillors. Contrary to the regional elections, local elections in Namibia are determined by party, not by individual candidate. There are 57 local authorities for which elections are conducted. Results for the local authority elections were announced on 29 November. For Okakarara,

Otavi Otavi is a town with 10,000 inhabitants in the Otjozondjupa Region of Namibia. Situated 360 km north of Windhoek, it is the district capital of the Otavi electoral constituency. Geography The towns of Otavi, Tsumeb (to the north) and Gr ...

and Katima Mulilo the results were yet unavailable due to a necessary review. In all three towns it was alleged that the formula for allocating seats was not correctly applied. In the local authority elections for Aroab, Koës and Stampriet "serious procedural errors" were discovered. Voters were handed the wrong ballot papers, meant for a different local authority or for a different election. No initial results were announced, and the electoral court ordered a re-run. The re-run was conducted on 26 February 2021.

References

{{Namibian elections , state=expanded 2020 in Namibia Local and regional elections in Namibia

November 2020 in Namibia