Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has won Namibia’s presidential election, making her the country’s first female president.
This week, the 72-year old current vice president secured more than 57 per cent of the votes, saying after she was declared president-elect: “The Namibian nation has voted for peace and stability.”
“Today, I am saying to the Namibian people, as we have been telling you, throughout the campaign…we have made commitments and I am saying to you, we are going to do what we have told [you]. Thank you for your trust and your confidence [in] us.”
As a loyal member of the governing party, Swapo, (South West Africa People’s Organization) since the age of 14, Nandi-Ndaitwah has spent her political career working within the post-independence government to become one of its most prominent female politicians, even finding herself exiled in Zambia and Tanzania for participating in her party’s activism.
Her opponent in this latest election, Panduleni Itula has rejected her victory, securing just 26 per cent of the votes, according to the electoral commission. Itula argued that the election was “deeply flawed” — a week after he claimed of a “multitude of irregularities” surrounding the official voting day, including technical problems and ballot paper shortages, which saw election officials extending the voting by three extra days.
His party Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) have since announced plans to challenge the result in court, arguing that the extension of the voting days was illegal.
Nandi-Ndaitwah has pledged to lead the country through an economic transformation, announcing last month that her government would spend “N$85 billion ($AUD7.29 billion) for job creation.”
“And we are going to create more than 500,000 jobs,” she said. She has also promised to fix the unemployment rate for young people, which is currently sitting at roughly 19 per cent.
Nandi-Ndaitwah stepped into her role as vice president in February, after former president Hage Geingob died while in office, aged 82, after a battle with cancer.
Born in 1952, Nandi-Ndaitwah was the ninth of 13 children, and as a teenager, became leader of Swapo’s Youth League. In a documentary about her life released this year, she revealed the genesis of her political career.
“Politics came in just because of the circumstances. I should have become maybe a scientist.”
Throughout her career, she has served in a number of roles, including Minister of Women’s and Child Affairs, Minister of Information and Broadcasting and Minister of Environment and Tourism.