After a contested result that the main opposition has already stated it does not recognize, Namibia’s first female president was sworn in Tuesday by the ruling SWAPO party, which was deemed the victor of last week’s contentious elections.
The electoral authority said that Vice-President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah received slightly more than 57 percent of the vote, with the main opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) candidate coming in second with 25.5 percent.
Since South Africa gained its independence from apartheid in 1990, the mineral-rich southern African nation has been run by the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), and Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, is the first woman to hold the position.
With the IPC garnering some support from younger generations more concerned with unemployment and inequality than allegiance to parties from the liberation era, the November 27 election served as a test of SWAPO’s 34-year hold on power.
Long lines caused by technical and logistical issues, such as a lack of ballots, forced the extension of the voting date to November 30. On the first day of voting, some voters gave up after waiting for as long as twelve hours.
The IPC declared that the results were unacceptable and that this was a calculated attempt to irritate voters.
According to 67-year-old Panduleni Itula, its presidential candidate, there were a “multitude of irregularities” last week.
“The IPC will not accept the results of that election,” he declared on Saturday, the final day of the extended voting period. He declared that the party would “fight… to nullify the elections through the processes that are established within our electoral process.”
When the SWAPO victory was announced on Tuesday, Imms Nashinge, a spokesperson for the IPC, stated that the party remained in this stance.
Last Thursday, Itula urged members of his party to maintain composure while also continuing to “stand firm to ensure that we shall not be robbed nor denied our democratic right to choose our leaders.”
Election monitors from a group of human rights attorneys in southern Africa also claimed that the ballot box delays were common and deliberate.
The lack of ballots and the overheating of the electronic tablets used for voter registration were among the Electoral Commission of Namibia’s (ECN) acknowledged shortcomings in the election’s administration.
The country, which has a small population, reported on Tuesday that roughly 77 percent of its nearly 1.5 million registered voters had cast ballots in the presidential election.
Elections are competitive by nature, but democracy requires us to come together after the ballots are counted, fellow Namibians. Following the announcement of the results, ECN chairperson Elsie Nghikembua urged all Namibians to accept them in the spirit of harmony, diversity, understanding, and reconciliation.
In addition, SWAPO won 51 seats in the concurrent national assembly election, while the IPC only won 20. The number of seats held by SWAPO was lower than its 63 seats in the previous session.
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The election was viewed as a crucial test for SWAPO because other liberation-era movements in the area, including as the Botswana Democratic Party’s removal from office last month after nearly 60 years, had lost support among young voters.
Although Namibia is a significant supplier of diamonds and uranium, analysts claim that few of its approximately three million citizens have profited from the country’s wealth in terms of better employment prospects and infrastructure.
The most recent official statistics from 2018 show that 46 percent of those aged 15 to 34 are unemployed, which is over three times the national average.
Nandi-Ndaitwah, a SWAPO mainstay with the initials NNN, will be one of the continent’s rare female leaders.
In February of this year, she was appointed vice president. She is the conservative daughter of an Anglican minister.
Known for her gold-rimmed spectacles, she has attempted to flaunt her years of experience during the campaign by frequently donning the colors of her party and the flag of the country: blue, red, and green.
NNN stated that one of her election pledges is to “create jobs by attracting investments using economic diplomacy.”
