Namibia’s 2024 elections: Who are the candidates and what is at stake? | Election News

In the midst of South Africa’s historic electoral turmoil, Namibians will go to the polls this week in highly competitive and hotly contested presidential and parliamentary elections.

Wednesday’s vote comes after long-ruling pro-independence parties were ousted in Botswana and crippled in South Africa earlier this year. In Mozambique, the recent victory of the ruling Frelimo party has led to ongoing protests amid allegations of electoral fraud.

The newly arrived party will further weaken the ruling SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organisation) Party of Namibia. This party has been in charge of the country since independence from the apartheid government in South Africa in 1990.

The increase in youth dissatisfaction could mean that this party is in danger of losing the presidency and the majority in Parliament for the first time. Its vote share has declined rapidly in the past two elections.

However, analysts say that although SWAPO faces the same problems as its counterparts in neighboring countries, the Namibian opposition lacks coordination.

“The opposition parties are not well organized here like in South Africa or Botswana. That could see SWAPO come out of the trenches and onto the path to winning parliament,” Graham Hopwood, executive director of the Windhoek-based Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), told Al Jazeera.

Namibia is big but has only 3 million people, making it one of the least populated countries in Africa. Its harsh, arid terrain is not suitable for habitation. The country is home to the Kalahari and Namib deserts. Its capital is Windhoek.

The voting on November 27 will be the seventh since independence. 1.45 million people are registered to vote.

Here’s everything you need to know about who’s running and what’s at stake:

How will people vote?

• Another 1.45 million eligible voters will elect the president and members of the National Assembly.
• Twenty-one churches are competing for nine out of six seats in parliament. There are 15 candidates for the presidential election.
• Presidential candidates are expected to win more than 50 percent of the vote to get the top job.
• If no candidate receives a majority vote, the top two candidates will face each other in a second round of elections. This has never happened in Namibia.

Who is running for president?

Deputy President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah (72): She is the first female SWAPO Party presidential candidate and is the favorite to win the election, although analysts say she faces stiff competition. If she succeeds, she will be the first female president of Namibia.

Nandi-Ndaitwah was among a number of SWAPO members who participated in the country’s freedom struggle in exile. He returned from the United Kingdom to join parliament in 1990 and continued to serve as a minister and several departments over the years. The late President Hage Geingob, who died of cancer in February, chose Nandi-Ndaitwah as deputy prime minister and appointed him as his successor before his death.

Despite SWAPO’s dominance, the politician faces many challenges, say analysts. There is popular discontent with the party in a highly unequal country where housing and employment are few and far between, and where corruption is rampant. Young people, in particular, do not believe in the continued power of SWAPO.

While Geingob received more than 80 percent of the vote in 2014, his share in 2019 dropped to 56 percent. SWAPO similarly lost its two-thirds majority in parliament in 2019. It was the first time this had happened since 1994.

“The appeal of the freedom struggle is disappearing in SWAPO, because many young people can no longer remember it, even if they were born after it,” said IPPR’s Hopwood. Another thing that has not been explored is the desire of Namibian men to vote for a female president, said the analyst.

Namibia is one of Africa’s most gender-equal countries. Almost half of the seats in parliament are held by women, and the Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelo-Amadhila is a woman. However, the prime minister is appointed, and it will be the first time that voters elect a female leader.

However, Hopwood added, Nandi-Ndaitwah has a reputation for not being corrupt, unlike some of his SWAPO colleagues.

In a special assembly on November 12, which was attended by about 16,300 people, including those such as security officials who could not vote on November 27, the politician led the other candidates with 60 percent of the vote.

Panduleni Itula (67): Itula was once a SWAPO youth leader before being exiled to the UK in the 1970s. There, he studied and worked as a dentist for over 30 years, returning to Namibia in 2013.

In the 2019 election, Itula shook up the political landscape when he ran as an independent candidate against the late President Geingob, much to the dismay of the SWAPO leadership. Itula managed to get 29% of the votes. It wasn’t enough to block Geingob’s second term plans, but it was the best any challenger has done against the ruling party.

Itula criticizes the SWAPO government for what he describes as rampant corruption and inefficiency in Namibia. He was expelled from SWAPO in 2020.

Now, he is back under his party Independent Patriots for Change (IPC). He is still popular, especially among young Namibians. Itula has promised economic development for the youth, and wants to reduce corporate tax so that more foreign companies can move to this country.

If young people come out to the polls, Itula may threaten SWAPO’s chances, as the politician appeals to the youth, said analyst Hopwood. Namibia’s Electoral Commission says 91% of eligible voters are registered to vote, with many young people under the age of 30.

“SWAPO is facing a serious challenge from Dr Itula and will be worried before the vote,” said Hopwood.

McHenry Venaani (47): He is the leader of the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), the main opposition party in Namibia. Although this party has 16 of the 96 seats in parliament, most of which are behind SWAPO, Venaani managed to get 5% of the votes in 2019 when he ran for the presidency.

Bernadus Swartbooi (47): He leads the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) campaigning for the redistribution of land to Namibians who were dispossessed by German settlers in the 1900s. LPM has four seats in parliament. In 2019, Swartbooi, formerly of SWAPO, won 3% of the vote.

Job Amupanda (37): A university professor leads an Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement that began as an advocacy group. The business focuses on land reclamation projects as well, and advocates aggressive measures, such as taking land owned by foreigners by force.

Most absentee landowners are of German and South African origin, and live permanently in South Africa, Germany or other European countries.

What are the important issues?

Economy and Inequality: Although a middle-income country rich in uranium and diamonds, Namibia’s wealth is unevenly distributed, stemming from a history of apartheid and violent colonialism. It is the second most unequal country in the world after South Africa.

The poverty rate is high, with more than 64 percent of the population living on less than $5.50 a day according to the World Bank. Most black Namibians and ethnic minorities are disadvantaged.

A punishing drought, destroying the country’s food production. It is the worst in a century, according to the World Food Programme. About 48 percent of the population is in need of emergency food assistance, and 17 percent of children under the age of five are disabled.

Inactivity: About 43 percent of Namibia’s youth are unemployed, one of the highest rates on the continent, according to official statistics last released in 2016. SWAPO’s Nandi-Ndaitwah pledged to spend an estimated 85 billion Namibian dollars ($4.7bn) over the next five years. to create more than 500,000 jobs, but there are questions about how the money will be raised.

IPC’s Itula wants to liberalize the economy and allow foreign companies to enter.

Corruption: Successive SWAPO governments are accused of deep-seated corruption. The fish rot scandal that broke out in 2019 still causes a stink. Fishing is profitable in Namibia and accounts for 20 percent of export earnings.

Several top government officials, including the late President Geingob, were implicated after WikiLeaks released files revealing how officials made plans to control important fishing quotas before turning them over to an Icelandic company for cash. Six people, including two SWAPO ministers, were arrested.

Although Vice President Nandi-Nanditwah was not involved in this, SWAPO has been heavily criticized for allowing members of the party who are under investigation to campaign for him before the election, such as SWAPO Youth Secretary Ephraim Nekongo.

The housing crisis and land reform: Inequality spills over into land and property ownership. Namibia urgently needs more than half a million homes to solve its housing shortage, but most people will not be able to afford housing because of poverty and high property prices, according to the World Economic Forum. About half a million people live in slums and shantytowns in Windhoek.

Left groups such as the Affirmative Repositioning movement have promised to build 300,000 houses in five years. Meanwhile, Itula’s IPC says it will declare a housing emergency.

The land reform program, which was intended to return land to white farm owners for the resettlement of poor Namibians, did not go well. Farmers are reluctant to sell the land, or to sell it at a high price, which makes it difficult for the government to find enough land to accommodate people.

Groups like AR have taken what analysts call a “strong position”, promising to forcibly return 1.4 million hectares (3,500,000) of land to foreigners and absentee landowners. PDM also promised to provide free land plots to the people.

What else?

Wednesday’s polls will close at 9pm CAT (19:00 GMT).

The results may be announced the next day, November 28.

However, as the election commission returns the ballot papers, the results may take a few days to come out. A number of vote counting problems in the 2019 election marred the use of e-reader cards and prompted their replacement.

Analysts said Wednesday’s vote was likely to be peaceful as the election was over. However, some experts are concerned that the delay in the results could lead to allegations of fraud or even pockets of violence, as seen in Mozambique.