It has been a time of change for Africa with Namibia choosing its first feminine President, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah. Namibia voted each a brand new President and a extra numerous Nationwide Meeting within the nation’s seventh elections since gaining independence from South Africa in 1990. Initially scheduled on 27 November 2024, in some areas polls ran as late as 30 November as a result of poor planning. Opposition events decried the transfer, boycotting the declaration and difficult the polls in courtroom. This discontent has (nevertheless) begun to subside, given widespread respect for the Electoral Fee of Namibia (ECN), and the disappointing efficiency of the ruling SWAPO social gathering. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah of the ruling SWAPO social gathering was declared winner and Namibia’s first feminine president. But, the Meeting elections noticed SWAPO decreased to 51 seats, a majority of three. SWAPO, which gained its base preventing towards apartheid in 1990, has not lately attracted Namibia’s youthful voters who’re offended at excessive unemployment.
An ECN spokesman suggested me:
We’re caught in a dilemma. We get pleasure from large-scale respect from all of the events, however we run elections primarily based on fashionable know-how that doesn’t work effectively throughout our nation. We all know this was a catastrophe in 2019 when the machines allow us to down. We now have reclaimed one thing from the technical slips there. We needed to delay the polls in some locations as late as 30 November. We’re nonetheless caught with the problem of delivering a contemporary, western-style election when the IT is simply not prepared. When it fails, folks naturally get suspicious…It’s a problem.
Previous to the election, on-line disinformation campaigns focused numerous candidates. These included false allegations akin to Panduleni Itula being a “British agent”; purported footage of one other opposition candidate, Bernadus Swartbooi, making tribalist statements in the direction of Itula; and lampooning of the President-elect. Numerous politicians additionally accused the Zimbabwean ZANU–PF of spreading false info.
A SWAPO spokeswoman defined:
We see this election as each a victory within the coronation of the primary feminine president from our social gathering, but additionally as an indication that we have to work tougher to make this nation higher, to enhance the economic system, to create jobs, to get funding, and to rise prosperity…. We all know that SWAPO can not commerce on the nostalgia of 1989 however we all know that Netumbo will make this nation nice once more… and that higher occasions are forward for everybody.
I first got here to Namibia in 1989 on the UN mission (UNTAG) established to help the nation’s transition to independence. I noticed one earlier post-independence election (2019 ) and returned for the elections in November 2024. Put up-1989 was a interval of nice change as the brand new authorities rolled out insurance policies which had been each equitable and progressive. That reform path was dulled up to now decade by political intransigence and incestuous social gathering infighting. It was dramatic to return earlier than the outbreak of Covid, and the tempo of reform between UNTAG and 2019 was immeasurably higher than now. Previous to UNTAG there had existed a publish generally known as the UN Commissioner for Namibia (beforehand UN Commissioner for South West Africa.) UNGA renamed the publish UN Commissioner for Namibia in 1968 and Namibia gained independence on 21 March 1990. Amongst the seven UN Commissioners (all of whom had been denied standing by South Africa) had been Irishman, Seán MacBride and Martti Ahtisaari of Finland who in April 1989 led UNTAG’s efficient decolonisation of Namibia.
Within the November 1989 elections, 98% of registered voters turned out. The elections had been licensed as free and honest by the UN Particular Consultant, with SWAPO taking 57% of the vote, simply wanting a two-thirds majority. The opposition Democratic Turnhalle Alliance acquired 29% of the vote. Whereas Namibia is a multiparty democracy, the South West Africa Individuals’s Organisation (SWAPO) has dominated since independence and the 2024 elections present all of the proof of common dissatisfaction with their social gathering hacks.
In the present day, there are a lot of areas of dissatisfaction, not least continual poverty and excessive unemployment. Whereas protections for civil liberties are typically strong, minority ethnic teams accuse the federal government of favouring the bulk Ovambo ethnic group in allocating providers. The nomadic San folks expertise excessive poverty and societal marginalization. Different human rights issues embody police brutality, and discrimination towards ladies and LGBT+ folks. In 2019, the late Hage Geingob of SWAPO was re-elected President with 56.3 % of the vote. Whereas worldwide observers deemed polls peaceable and outcomes credible, issues had been raised about digital voting machines, lengthy ready occasions to vote, and delays within the counting and launch of outcomes. In 2024 these issues had been (largely) addressed by the NEC, however the SWAPO vote had fallen additional.
The 2024 and 2019 polls had been each declared honest by worldwide observers, though issues had been raised over different points of the method. Controversy round using digital machines dominated the 2019 elections, and the substitution of paper ballots in 2024 largely addressed that concern. In 2024 the better plurality of minority pursuits has additional unseated the historic dominance of SWAPO. Specifically, opposition events now management the important thing cities of Windhoek, Walvis Bay, and Swakopmund. Whereas the frequent narrative is that this development displays SWAPO’s declining recognition and issues over rising patronage, these extra aggressive outcomes additionally replicate the pure evolution of a wholesome multiparty system. Namibia’s opposition events, lots of that are spin-offs from SWAPO, stay comparatively weak and underfunded. Nonetheless, they’ve been constructing their capability and organizational outreach. Furthermore, the polity is altering with a rising share of city and younger post-independence voters. Their perspective towards SWAPO and its liberation credentials battle with the older technology of Namibians.
Namibia’s more and more aggressive multiparty system presents an opportunity for innovation and democratic self-correction, creating incentives for all events to show good governance. These developments could assist Namibia throw off the failings of entrenched and infrequently corrupt dominant-party methods. 2024’s electoral surroundings supported freedom of meeting and free speech overseen by the ECN which is extensively seen as neutral. Namibia’s judiciary is autonomous from political affect. Furthermore, Namibia is certainly one of Africa’s most open environments for press freedom, contributing to authorities accountability.
The 2014 election will possible consolidate earlier equality features impacting considerably on Namibian civil society. Namibia’s Supreme Court docket granted overseas spouses of Namibians in same-sex marriages equal immigration rights as overseas spouses in heterosexual marriages. The ruling sparked an anti-LGBT+ backlash. Parliament then handed laws banning the popularity of same-sex marriages and explicitly overriding the Supreme Court docket ruling. It’s possible that the brand new President will pressure by a extra liberal equality agenda. Namibia has pledged itself to encourage better equality of rights, political pluralism and wider societal participation at native authorities ranges. A Netumbo-supporter repeated to me that the President-elect genuinely needs to make sure all Namibians, “get pleasure from the suitable to prepare in numerous political events or different aggressive political groupings of their alternative, in a political system freed from undue obstacles…”
These are objectives aspired to by a number of worldwide human rights our bodies, together with the UN. Even so there are inherent issues within the system which Netumbo inherits. Whereas Namibian political events could type and function freely, and registration necessities are usually not onerous, candidate-registration charges and marketing campaign financing nonetheless place an undue burden on smaller events. Events that maintain parliamentary seats obtain annual public assist primarily based on parliamentary illustration, which continues to disproportionately profit SWAPO. Small events lack monetary sources or nationwide membership bases, impeding their potential to mobilize assist.
It stays to be seen how the brand new President could reconcile threats from her personal SWAPO colleagues. She has expressed a want to tweak the system, allowing the opposition to extend its monetary assist, however her personal SWAPO enemies may have their knives out for her on this rating. The minority events who’ve traditionally been thought to be weak and fragmented jumped sizably within the prior November 2020 native elections, and are poised to do effectively on the subsequent provincial-level polls. With opposition dislodging SWAPO from the two-thirds majority it held since 2014, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah can not seem weak in placating minorities, and should additionally should additionally keep SWAPO’s base-support to retain energy.
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