Local and regional elections were held in

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

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; af, Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volks Organisasie, SWAVO; german: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former ind ...

party.

Electoral system

Elections for regional councils are held using the

first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

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 a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

. Local authority candidate lists have affirmative action 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 The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) is an agency of the Government of Namibia. It was founded in 1992 under the Electoral Act 24 of 1992. The aim of the commission is to oversee all Namibian electoral activities starting from voter registra ...

announced that the national lockdown would not affect the election date. The elections will be conducted using paper ballots after the Supreme Court of Namibia ruled in February 2020 that without a

paper trail An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...

, usage of

electronic voting machine An electronic voting machine is a voting machine based on electronics. Two main technologies exist: '' optical scanning'' and '' direct recording'' (DRE). Optical scanning In an optical scan voting system, or marksense, each voter's choices ...

s (EVMs) in elections contravenes 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 constituencies. The size of the constituencies varies with the size and population of each region. There are currently 121 constituencies in Namibia. The most populous con ...

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 The South West Africa People's Organisation (, SWAPO; af, Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volks Organisasie, SWAVO; german: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former ind ...

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 Missionar ...

, Tondoro and Uuvudhiya. There the SWAPO candidate was declared the winner. In the

Mariental Rural Mariental Rural is a constituency in the Hardap region of Namibia. Its administrative centre is the city of Mariental. It had a population of 15,308 in 2011, up from 13,946 in 2001. the constituency had 4,065 registered voters. Politics The 20 ...

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. There are 57 local authorities for which elections were conducted. Results for the local authority elections were announced on 29 November. For

Okakarara Okakarara is a town in Otjozondjupa Region, Namibia, located southeast of Waterberg National Park. It has an estimated population of 7,000 and is currently growing by 1,500 inhabitants annually. Okakarara consists of the residential areas of ''Pa ...

Otavi Otavi is a town of 4,000 inhabitants in the Otjozondjupa Region of central 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 Gro ...

and

Katima Mulilo Katima Mulilo or simply Katima is the capital of the Zambezi Region in Namibia. It is located in the Caprivi Strip. It had 28,362 inhabitants in 2010, and comprises two electoral constituencies, Katima Mulilo Rural and Katima Mulilo Urban. I ...

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 Aroab is a village with a population of approximately 5,000 in the ǁKaras Region of southern Namibia. It is situated about south-east of Keetmanshoop on the edge of the Kalahari desert; the average annual rainfall is about 150–200 mm. ...

Koës Koës is a village in the ǁKaras Region of south-eastern Namibia. It is situated on the edge of the Kalahari desert and belongs to the Keetmanshoop Rural electoral constituency. The average annual rainfall is about 150-200 mm. Economy and in ...

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, respectively. No initial result 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