The new media is beginning to play a role in electoral processes of various African countries. Namibian political parties made use of new media technologies and networking sites to improve their campaign repertoires during the 2009 presidential elections. The ruling party the South West African People’s Organisation ( SWAPO,) set up a channel on YouTube, a blog and an SMS service which will allow voters to keep in touch with the party. The use of new media by political party is a good sign of progress, but a more important point to investigate is how the new media are monitoring and reporting elections in Africa. The African Elections Project uses new media to do just that. The project helps monitor the Namibian elections and set up a Namibia page on its website, a blog and a twitter page to keep track of elections news and results.
Although online social media has not become as popular in Namibia as in other countries such as South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, the use of new media to monitor important democratic processes is defiantly a step in the right direction.
Not all attempts to use online social media to monitor elections have been successful. An online plat form , Sudan Vote Monitor, which was designed to facilitate independent monitoring of the Sudanese elections is currently being blocked by the government, preventing citizens from reporting irregularities in the recent polls. The site has been monitoring the elections by allowing journalists, NGOs and citizens in Sudan to report on the voting process. Users can could also send text messages, upload video and post comments to highlight both positive and negative aspects of the poll to the site.
The Sudanese people have not been able to access the website for the past six days. Both local and international journalists believe that by blocking a website that is supposed to help monitor the elections the Sudanese government is clearly indicating its need to hide information that could potentially damage it.
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