The political campaigns of the 2009 general elections were centered around service delivery – with water and electricity topping the agenda of many political rallies.
Because of this promise, and others, Swapo was once again handed a two-thirds majority by the electorate. It was a massive vote of confidence in the ruling party’s promise of changing the lives of many – especially those in rural areas and the growing informal settlements.
With Swapo flags hoisted on many of their shacks, the informal settlement residents of Windhoek in particular had hoped that by this time of President Hifikepunye Pohamba’s last term they would have their houses connected to water and electricity.
Their appeals for the past four years have all but landed on the deaf ears of their councillors and other political leaders.
But as if it were to insult them deliberately, the residents are now being asked to produce municipal water and electricity bills in order to prove their residency if they want to register for next year’s local authority elections.
Water and electricity are alien to many of these residents, despite their repeated appeals for such utility services. The ruling party is extremely popular in informal settlements where residents, most of them semi-illiterate, are still thankful for Swapo’s liberation struggle heroics.
While there is ample evidence that Swapo has delivered on a number of its election promises of 2009, the government has not done much in improving the lives of people in shantytowns, not only in Windhoek but countrywide.
But it is making municipal bills a voter registration requirement that baffles us most. There are thousands of citizens of goodwill who want to participate in the democratic dispensation of their country, but who are confronted with an unnecessarily long process to tick on the ballot paper.
We do know that there are alternatives ways to register as a voter in the local authority election without presenting municipal bills, but those alternatives as even more cumbersome.
To find a witness who is willing to attest to electoral authorities that you are a resident of a certain area is not a walk in the park. The earmarked witness reserves the right to turn down any request for representation, which will leave the aspiring voter at risk of participating democratically in choosing who they want as their political leaders.
We urgently need to work out new, less stressful requirements of registering citizens as voters – or redefine the term ‘democracy’
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