Namibia Elects First 72-Year old Female President

Namibia Elects First 72-Year old Female President

Namibia has broken its political history with the emergence of a first female president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah.

THECONSCIENCE NG reports that the ruling SWAPO party was declared winner Tuesday of last week’s disputed elections, ushering in the southern African country’s first woman president after a disputed vote that the main opposition has already said it does not recognise.

Vice-President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah took just over 57 percent of ballots followed by the candidate for the main opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) with 25.5 percent, the election authority announced.

Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, becomes the first woman to rule the mineral-rich southern African country that has been governed by the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.

The November 27 election was a test of SWAPO’s 34-year grip on power, with the IPC attracting some support from younger generations more concerned by unemployment and inequality than loyalty to liberation-era parties.

Voting was extended to November 30 after logistical and technical problems, including a shortage of ballot papers, led to long queues. Some voters gave up on the first day of voting after waiting for up to 12 hours.

The IPC presidential candidate Panduleni Itula, 67, said last week there were a “multitude of irregularities”.

The “IPC shall not recognise the outcome of that election”, he said on Saturday, the last day of the extended vote. The party would “fight… to nullify the elections through the processes that are established within our electoral process”, he said.

In reaction to Tuesday’s announcement of the SWAPO victory, IPC spokesperson Imms Nashinge said the party maintained this position.