Ondangwa: The Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) is seeking to build on its 2020 breakthrough as it aims to take control of the northern town of Ondangwa in Wednesday's local authority elections. In the local authority elections five years ago, IPC caused an upset by winning three of the seven seats on the Ondangwa Town Council, traditionally dominated by the ruling Swapo Party, which retained four seats.

According to Namibia Press Agency, the main opposition party held a door-to-door campaign in the town on Saturday, beginning with a drive-through. One of IPC's local authority candidates for Ondangwa, Matheus Edhiya, who led the campaign, told Nampa that the party aims to secure more seats in the 26 November elections. He said that the campaign has so far demonstrated that the party still enjoys strong support among Ondangwa residents.

'We just had a roadshow, and as you can see, people are coming to support us because they believe that IPC is the only party that will serve their interests,' Edhiya said, referring to a large group of supporters clad in the party's white shirts, largely made up of young people. 'Currently Swapo have four seats in the town council while IPC have three seats. But this time around we are working hard, we want to win up to six seats,' he said, adding that the party seeks to ensure that residents have space to live in Ondangwa.

Edhiya urged Namibians to turn out in large numbers to vote in next week's seventh regional councils and local authority elections, stressing that these polls directly affect people at the grassroots. 'We are urging the town residents, not only Ondangwa, to come out in big numbers and vote, because these elections affect all the people living in towns, unlike the national elections last year,' said the IPC candidate.

Alongside IPC and the Swapo Party, five other political parties have fielded candidates for the local authority elections in Ondangwa. These are Affirmative Repositioning, the Action Democracy Movement, the Body of Christ Party, the National Empowerment Fighting Corruption and the Popular Democratic Movement. Records from the Electoral Commission of Namibia show that 16,970 Ondangwa residents are registered to vote.