Namibia has started vote counting on Thursday after technical problems led to long delays on election day, forcing authorities to extend voting in a pivotal poll set to test the ruling party's 34-year rule.
Logistical issues on Wednesday, including problems with electronic tablets used to check voters' identities and insufficient ballot papers, left crowds still queueing until the early hours of Thursday in the southern African nation.
Though polls were scheduled to close at 09:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Wednesday, those in line before that time were allowed to stay to cast their ballot, according to Namibia's electoral law.
Armed with folding chairs and umbrellas to cope with the slow-moving lines and blazing sun, Namibians among the 1.5 million registered voters spent hours waiting outside polling stations, some for up to 12 hours.
Addressing complaints
At the University of Science and Technology in the capital Windhoek, voting stopped at 05:00 am on Thursday, polling officers told AFP.
"It's absolutely disappointing," said Reagan Cooper, a 43-year-old farmer among the hundred or so voters outside the town hall polling station in Windhoek.
The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) extended voting hours following the delays.
Before the delays, initial results were scheduled to be released Saturday.
Political parties with candidates running in the simultaneous presidential and legislative races were invited to meet with the ECN at noon Thursday to address complaints about the process.
The opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) is among those who have blamed the electoral body for the long lines and have cried foul.
First female president chances
"We have reason to believe that the ECN is deliberately suppressing voters and deliberately trying to frustrate voters from casting their vote," said IPC official Christine Aochamus.
The vote could usher in the nation's first woman leader even as her party, the ruling South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO), faces the strongest challenge to its political dominance since Namibia's 1990 independence from South Africa.
But SWAPO's candidate and current vice president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, could also face an unprecedented second round, according to analysts.
The long queues were "a signal that people really want a change", said Ndumba Kamwanyah, lecturer in the Department of Human Sciences at the University of Namibia.
Namibia's challenges
"For me, it seems it's not good news for the incumbent party," he told AFP.
SWAPO has governed since leading mineral-rich Namibia to independence but complaints about unemployment and enduring inequalities could undermine its standing at this election.
IPC leader Panduleni Itula, a former dentist and lawyer, said Wednesday he was optimistic he could "unseat the revolutionary movement".
Namibia is a major uranium and diamond exporter but not many of its nearly three million people have benefited from that wealth.
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