Electing service-driven candidates for the forthcoming regional council and local authority polls is essential because these elections are far-reaching as they broaden the level of our well-grounded democratic norms and ideals.
These elections should be taken seriously by political entities, independent candidates, associations vis-à-vis ratepayers’ associations in light of the fact they are intended to bring real services to the electorate who deserve better.

Voters participating in the polls on the horizon should not vote for job-seekers fixated on landing salaried positions but they should vote for competent candidates who will bring real development in 2020 and beyond.

After 30 years of independence, gone are the days when meaningless sloganeering, noisy chanting and gifting cheap T-shirts reigned supreme.
Service should be the essence and the pinnacle of this democratic exercise.
Voters should not waste time with those masquerading as candidates who once elected will retreat into their shells only to resurface during the next regional and local elections as has become the political norm.

Being a councillor entails hard work as it requires the voted candidate to deliver better roads, running water and electrify informal settlements while getting rid of mountains of uncollected garbage.
What happened at Grootfontein where councillors stand accused of being inept, failing to deliver the most basic of services – and the photo in our news story yesterday verifies this – substantiate residents’ claims of councillors’ incompetence.

There was also the unresolved issue in Kongola in the Zambezi region where Swapo members threatened not to vote for their party after it rail-loaded a candidate down their throats, leaving a bitter political after-taste.
Party supporters are dissatisfied over the district conference held on 18 August, 2019 where out of fourteen branches in Kongola only two participated after delegates expressed discontent over the imposition of a candidate. 

They even took their concerns to the national leadership of the party that apparently ignored them. On top of the apathy in 2019 they have threatened to revolt in the regional and local authority because of the unresolved issue.
Residents should not be taken for granted because voter apathy blemished polls of yesteryear where no lessons seem to have been learnt.
Voters have awoken to the fact they will not vote for self-serving candidates who in some cases merely want to advance own interests and not those of the people who elected them or organisations or entities they represent. Councillors’ primary role is to honestly represent voters or ratepayers and they should serve as a bridge between their local authority and voters and should also deliver, because gone are the days of political dead wood.
Gone are the days of freeloading on voters who deserve better service.