Today, on the 35th anniversary of Namibia’s independence, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah will be sworn in as the country’s president, having won the November 2024 presidential elections for the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), which has governed since independence in 1990.
SWAPO has steadily lost support over its 35 years of rule. In last year’s polls, it looked like the party could lose power or be forced into a coalition like its fellow former liberation movement, South Africa’s African National Congress.
In the end, it scraped home, with 53 per cent of the parliamentary vote, giving it 51 out of 96 seats. SWAPO was still well ahead of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), which won 20 seats. In the presidential election, Mrs Nandi-Ndaitwah did better than her party, winning 58 per cent of the vote to the 25.8 per cent of second-placed Panduleni Itula of the IPC.
NNN, as she is widely called, will become only the third woman to serve as executive head of an African government, after Liberia’s Ellen Sirleaf and Tanzania’s President Samia Hassan.
NNN will be the first woman to be elected president of a Southern African country. That’s because Samia Suluhu, then vice-president, automatically succeeded John Magufuli on his death in 2021. She will run for election as president for the first time in October.
At 72, NNN is a veteran SWAPO stalwart who went into exile in 1973 to join the liberation struggle. Although serving in government since independence, she nonetheless remains something of an unknown beyond Namibia. And her ascent to State House has not been without controversy.
Henning Melber, a SWAPO member and Extraordinary Professor of Political Science at Pretoria University, told ISS Today that he believed proper SWAPO procedures were not followed when NNN was elected – only last week – as SWAPO president. “The SWAPO central committee decided that NNN should be “elected” by acclamation. This means that no other candidates were allowed to compete and no vote was taken.”
Mr Melber also expressed concern that the party vice-president position, which NNN vacated to stand for president, had not been filled. “This seeks to avoid strengthening internal factions and consolidate her sole authority. But if NNN is now president of state and party with no deputies in place on both levels, this seems another step towards autocratic tendencies. Not to mention what might happen if she becomes unable to execute office. Who will be the stand-in?”
The Namibian reported that SWAPO Member of Parliament Tobie Aupindi had told Desert FM that the vacant SWAPO vice-president position would be filled only at the party’s ordinary congress in 2027. So the question of who, if anyone, will be sworn in as Namibia’s vice-president remains.
