The south-western African nation of Namibia may soon get its first female president when the country heads to the voting booth on Wednesday.
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, who has served as the Vice President since February, appears to be leading the presidential race, with early polls conducted by the country’s Electoral Commission showing that Nandi-Ndaitwah and her party, the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) are out in front.
Roughly half of the nation’s three million people have registered to vote on Wednesday, with fifteen political parties in the run for seats in the National Assembly.
If she wins, Nandi-Ndaitwah will become the nation’s first female president, but it will unlikely translate to a win for women. She is believed to hold conservative views on issues such as women’s reproductive rights, and she is “…a strict advocate of strong abortion laws,” according to Henning Melber, from the Nordic Africa Institute at the University of Uppsala. “She has internalised a kind of an anti-Western feeling.”
“When it comes to her orientation, being a woman does not mean that there will be more feminist policies around the corner.”
Instead, the 72-year old daughter of an Anglican pastor appeared at a campaign rally in the town of Eenhana last month, promising to 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.
In 2023, her party voted against same-sex marriage. In June this year, the country’s high court overturned the law that criminalised gay sex, with the judges stating that the laws constituted unfair discrimination under Namibia’s constitution.
Since its independence from South Africa’s apartheid minority government in 1990, the party has governed Namibia, only losing majority of the National Assembly for the first time in 2019.
The party has been plagued by corruption and bribery scandals — something Nandi-Ndaitwah will have to work towards ending by striving to be independent, transparent and accountable, according to political science academic, Erika Thomas from the University of Namibia.
“She must also try to push for policies and legislation frameworks for women participation and to bring more women into the political structures,” Thomas told PBS News.
Nandi-Ndaitwah’s party faces stiff commotion competition from the Independent Patriots for Change, led by former dentist Panduleni Itula, and 37-year old former mayor of Windhoek, Job Amupanda and his Affirmative Repositioning party.
If she wins on Wednesday, Nandi-Ndaitwah would put Namibia on the list of countries that have had a female as its head of state, including Liberia, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Malawi.