Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party has elected Deputy Prime Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah as the party’s new vice-president, making her the front-runner to succeed President Hage Geingob, which could also mean she becomes the first woman to become president of the southwest African country.
Nandi-Ndaitwah has beaten the Prime Minister, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila and the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, in the race to be the ‘number two’ of SWAPO, acronym of the South West Africa People’s Organization and thus potential candidate for the 2024 elections.
The vote within the party has taken place after President Geingob refused to name a successor, as his predecessors had been doing, reports Bloomberg agency.
«We have made history by electing the first woman president in 2024,» Geingob celebrated early on Monday, warning Nandi-Ndaitwah that the position she is expected to run for is «a heavy task.»
SWAPO has led Namibia since independence in 1990 and although it remains the country’s largest political party, its popularity has declined in recent years, as shown by the results of the last general election in 2019, in which it lost its two-thirds majority in the National Assembly The difficult economic situation, with high levels of unemployment, and the cases of corruption within the Government itself – resulting in the arrest of former ministers and businessmen linked to the party – have finally hit SWAPO, which has also lost control of key electoral fiefdoms such as the capital, Windhoek, or port cities such as Walvis Bay and Swakopmund.
