{"id":69541,"date":"2014-11-28T07:00:03","date_gmt":"2014-11-28T07:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=69541"},"modified":"2014-11-28T07:00:03","modified_gmt":"2014-11-28T07:00:03","slug":"namibia-votes-first-africa-e-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=69541","title":{"rendered":"Namibia votes in first Africa e-poll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\" class=\"introduction\">Namibians are choosing a new president and parliament &#8211; in what is Africa&#8217;s first electronic ballot.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling South West Africa People&#8217;s Organisation (Swapo) is expected to win the poll and Prime Minister Hage Geingob to become president.<\/p>\n<p>Opposition parties had challenged the Indian-made e-voting machines, citing concerns that a lack of a paper trail could encourage vote rigging.<\/p>\n<p>But the case was dismissed by the country&#8217;s High Court this week.<\/p>\n<p>About 1.2 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots at nearly 4,000 polling stations across the vast country.<\/p>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79355000\/jpg\/_79355548_024835993-1.jpg\" alt=\"Prime Minister Hage Geingob (centre) during a campaign rally in Windhoek. Photo: 22 November 2014\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\">Hage Geingob (centre) is a firm favourite to become president<\/div>\n<p>Polling officers will verify voter cards on a device containing the national voters&#8217; roll. In the booth, the voter selects their party of choice by pressing a button on an electronic ballot unit.<\/p>\n<p>Electoral officials believe results will be available 24 hours after the poll ends.<\/p>\n<p>There are 16 parties contesting the parliamentary vote and nine are fielding presidential candidates.<\/p>\n<p>Swapo &#8211; which has won all elections since independence from South Africa in 1990 &#8211; is expected to triumph again in the race to the National Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>The party&#8217;s candidate Mr Geingob is widely seen as the favourite to become president.<\/p>\n<p>Incumbent President Hifikepunye Pohamba has already served the maximum two terms allowed by the constitution.<\/p>\n<p>Swapo&#8217;s liberation movement credentials play a significant role in securing party loyalty across age groups, analysts say, although that loyalty has been eroded.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling party has a long record of addressing issues of social inequality, but opposition parties highlight accusations of land grabs and abuse of power by officials.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Namibians are choosing a new president and parliament &#8211; in what is Africa&#8217;s first electronic ballot. The ruling South West Africa People&#8217;s Organisation (Swapo) is expected to win the poll and Prime Minister Hage Geingob to become president. Opposition parties had challenged the Indian-made e-voting machines, citing concerns that a lack of a paper trail [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":69542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-69541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}