Namibia: Election countdown 2004

A lack of resources has forced civil society actors to scale down on the number of observers to be trained and deployed in the upcoming election from 900 to 270, according to an election update by the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa. EISA said other factors likely to undermine election monitoring efforts included a late start to the sensitising, mobilising and training of observers at community level and inadequate publicity. But EISA also pointed to the role of other civil society organisations in the electoral process. "Other contributions are those of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), that started monitoring the electoral process by dispatching its human rights monitors to supplementary voter registration points, as well as to campaign rallies of political parties to monitor the extent to which parties are shouldering their responsibility towards ensuring an atmosphere for the free expression of political conviction, without threat or fear of intimidation."