Namibia’s first woman president takes the helm

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.

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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.”

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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.

Rather ironically, an unconfirmed report this week speculated that NNN intended to scrap the government positions of vice-president, deputy prime minister and all deputy ministries, as part of a drive to slash the bureaucracy and cut costs. But it’s unclear whether the report is accurate.

The late Hage Geingob, Namibia’s president from 2015-24, had made more modest cuts in 2018, eliminating double deputy ministries in all portfolios except the presidency, where he kept three.

Gwen Lister, commentator and founding editor of The Namibian, told ISS Today: “Although Ndaitwah’s candidacy as SWAPO presidential candidate was contested in court, the case was lost, and she is home free as the soon-to-be sworn-in president of Namibia. A majority of Namibians are now rallying behind her as the country’s first woman head of state.”

But can NNN meet the high expectations and arrest the steady erosion of SWAPO support? She has set the bar high, advertising herself as an implementer. “When I say something, I mean it, and I follow up and show the implementation,” the Namibian recently reported her as saying.

It added that she vowed to ‘inculcate a culture of meritocracy’ driven by ‘effective performance management and consequence management systems’ whereby ministers will report quarterly on their targets.

The Namibian said she clearly intended to ‘hit the ground running,’ citing her punting of a N$90 billion SWAPO Party Manifesto Implementation Plan as the blueprint to solve Namibia’s socioeconomic problems.

The ambitious plan includes reducing food imports by 80 per cent come 2028, by establishing 130,000-hectare ‘super farms’ and spending N$7 billion to construct sports stadiums countrywide. “Universal healthcare targeting rural areas to ‘match the private sector’ will be backed with N$3 billion a year. Free tertiary education is on the cards, as is the promise of 50 000 houses at a cost of up to N$300 000 each,” the Namibian reported.

Other journalists seem to agree that NNN is an incorruptible person of integrity, is well loved by Namibians, and that women and youth are particularly excited about having a woman as president. As a cabinet minister over the past 25 years in various portfolios, she had always been strict, disciplined and thoroughly briefed on her subjects, they said.

Despite her promise to be an implementer, one senior journalist noted that “she is not a mover and shaker. She has integrity and will maintain stability but some worry whether the economy will grow under her.’

The journalist said NNN was ‘not a fan’ of the green hydrogen project, which Geingob had vigorously punted as a game changer for Namibia, and some thought she might not have the clout in SWAPO to impose the necessary discipline.

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Reporting on SWAPO’s implementation plan, The Namibian sounded a note of scepticism about NNN’s ambition. The plan listed establishing a new national airline by 2026 as a tool to drive Namibia’s economic and social welfare. Perhaps, suggested the paper, NNN and SWAPO had forgotten the lessons of “the dismal failure of Air Namibia, which required more than N$10 billion of taxpayers’ money over 15 years to keep it flying country’s flag.”

So Namibia and the region await NNN’s presidency with anticipation. Will she inculcate a culture of meritocracy in a streamlined bureaucracy, crack the whip and get things done? Or will she simply inject new energy into old ideas?

Peter Fabricius, Consultant, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Pretoria

(This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish).