South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) presidential candidate Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah casts her ballot at the Emma Hoogenhout Primary school polling station in Hochland Park, Windhoek, on November 27, 2024 during Namibia's general election. Nandi-Ndaitwah from the ruling SWAPO party has won presidential elections with 57.31 percent of the vote, the election commission announced on December 3, 2024. Picture: Simon Maina (AFP)
Dr. Sizo Nkala
NAMIBIA just concluded its historic, although controversial, elections which saw Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of the ruling South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) elected president having secured 57 percent of the vote.
This makes her the country’s first woman president of Namibia and the second in Africa.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia was the first woman to be elected president in Africa. Nandi-Ndaitwah’s election has shattered a glass ceiling and, through its symbolic significance, could change social attitudes towards women in leadership not only in Namibia but in Africa more broadly.
The president-elect is by no means a political novice. She is a stalwart of the country’s liberation struggle. By her own account, she grew politically conscious by experiencing the injustices of the Apartheid system first in her family where her brothers were recruited for cheap labour and would come back home with nothing to show. She also experienced Apartheid in her surroundings where white people enjoyed privileges that were not accessible to black people.
She joined SWAPO as a teenager when she went to boarding school in 1966 and obtained a party card. She soon rose to lead the SWAPO Youth League as its chairperson and helped organise crippling strikes protesting the injustices of the Apartheid regime which led to her arrest alongside many others. She was handed a three-year suspended sentence in 1973 on the condition that she stop engaging in political activities – a condition that she says was impossible to comply with considering the prevailing circumstances.
After her sentencing, she secured a teaching post at Odibo High School in 1974. However, she gave up teaching and went into exile in Zambia and then Angola after a few months. She was part of the SWAPO delegation to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1974 where she addressed the Decolonisation Committee on the situation in Namibia.
In the same year, she was appointed Deputy Chief Representative of SWAPO in Lusaka, Zambia. Part of her responsibilities as the Chief Representative was to take of the welfare of exiled Namibians. In 1980 she was transferred to Dar es Salam, Tanzania, where she worked with the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Liberation Committee coordinating the supply of weapons and other materials for SWAPO and establishing relations with East African countries.
The president-elect participated in the early negotiations for the implementation of the 1978 United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 which called for a ceasefire between SWAPO and the Apartheid regime and elections under the supervision of the UN. This was the resolution which eventually led to the demise of the Apartheid regime and ushered in independence for Namibia.
Her experience in the negotiations inspired her to subsequently study international relations at Keele University in the United Kingdom (UK). Further, she has recounted how working with African countries during SWAPO’s liberation struggle got her to appreciate the pan-African values of solidarity and comradeship.
Upon independence in 1990, she served in various portfolios in government including being the Deputy Minister of International Relations (1990-1996), Director-General of Women’s Affairs (1996-2000), Minister of Women and Child Welfare 2000-2005), Minister of Information and Broadcasting (2005-2010), Minister of Environment and Tourism (2010-2012), Minister of Foreign Affairs (2012-2024).
She was appointed Deputy Prime Minister by the late former President Hage Geingob – a post she held simultaneously with the Foreign Affairs portfolio. Upon the death of President Geingob in February 2024, she was appointed Vice President. During her time in government gender equality was one of her main priorities.
She spearheaded the establishment of the International Women Peace Center which was aimed at protecting the interests of women in conflict situations and enhancing their agency in the resolution of conflicts. She also played a critical role in the adoption of the UNSC Resolution 1325 in 2000 which sought to incorporate gender perspective and increase the participation of women in the UN peace and security operations.
Gender was until then, not seen as a security issue, but a social issue which made peace and security an exclusively male domain even though women suffered the most. She has credited herself for contributing to a change in social attitudes towards the position of women in the Namibian society when she was Minister of Women and Child Welfare.
Nandi-Ndaitwah was also instrumental in increasing the representation of women in the Namibian parliament by pushing for a zebra-list in SWAPO’s parliamentary list which saw more women occupy higher positions in the list.
The president-elect will have her work cut out for her as she assumes office in March 2025. She will have to address the problem of unemployment, especially among the urban youth which contributed to SWAPO’s declining popularity.
Economic reforms are needed to attract more investment and transform the Namibian from a commodity-dependent one to an industry and services-based economy. Only this way will the new administration be able to create jobs.
One of Nandi-Ndaitwah’s selling points is that she has not been tainted by corruption scandals. However, she will have to deal with the rampant corruption in the public sector and within her party ranks.
Only time will tell whether she has enough political capital to deal with the corrupt members of the ruling party. Further, this has been a divisive and gruelling election season. Opposition parties and their supporters are aggrieved about how the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) handled the election and have disputed its outcomes.
Hence, one of Nandi-Ndaitwah’s most important tasks will be to unite the country and guard against possible instability and conflict.
At the regional level, Nandi-Ndaitwah’s election has granted former liberation movements in the SADC region a respite in the context of poor electoral performances by the ruling parties in South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique.
The incoming Namibian president was deeply involved in the anti-colonial liberation struggle and her election will reinforce the solidarity among liberation movements in the region.
* Dr. Sizo Nkala is Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Africa-China Studies.
** The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The African.