General
Namibia Elects First Woman as President as Ruling Party Keeps Power
Across southern Africa, political parties that have led their countries since the end of colonialism have ceded power to the opposition in recent months. Namibia bucked the trend.
In a year when election upsets have changed southern Africa’s political landscape, Namibia’s governing party has bucked the trend, winning the mineral-rich country’s general election, the electoral commission there said on Tuesday.
For the first time in its history, Namibia has also elected a female president. The winner, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, joins the small number of women who have led countries in Africa.
Ms. Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, served as the country’s deputy prime minister and minister of international relations and cooperation under President Hage G. Geingob, who died in February. An interim president was put in charge but did not run in the election.
Ms. Nandi-Ndaitwah, who won 57.31 percent of the presidential vote, led the South West Africa People’s Organization, or SWAPO, which has governed Namibia for more than three decades, since independence. SWAPO won 51 out of 96 seats in Parliament, a decrease from the 63 seats it won in the 2019 election. The lost seats were most likely a reflection of widespread frustration with the country’s stagnant economy.
Panduleni Itula and his Independent Patriots for Change, which was founded in 2020 by a group of politicians who broke away from SWAPO, won second place, with 20 seats. Thirteen other opposition parties shared the rest.
