In the midst of a historic election in Southern Africa, Namibians will go to the polls this week to cast their ballots in the highly contested presidential and parliamentary elections.
The vote was held on Wednesday after the long-time ruling Nationalist Party was kicked out Botswana and disabled in South Africa earlier this year. In Mozambique the ruling Frelimo party has made a recent victory the ongoing deadly protests amid allegations of election tampering.
This new party is expected to free the power of the ruling party SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organization) of Namibia. The party has been ruling the country since the country gained independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.
Growing discontent among young people could mean the party is at risk of losing its leadership and majority of MPs for the first time. His ratings have dropped significantly in the last two elections.
However, experts say that although SWAPO is facing the same problems as its counterparts in neighboring countries, the opposition in Namibia is not united.
“Here the opposition parties are not as good as in South Africa or Botswana. This will see SWAPO break away from tradition and find a way to win parliament,” Graham Hopwood, head of the Windhoek-based Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), told Al Jazeera.
Namibia is a large country with a population of 3 million, making it one of the least populated countries in Africa. Its dry, dry environment is unfit for habitation. The country has the Kalahari and Namib deserts. Its capital is Windhoek.
The November 27 vote will be the seventh since independence. About 1.45 million people registered to vote.
Here’s everything you need to know about who’s running and what’s at stake:
How will people vote?
- A total of 1.45 million eligible voters will elect the President and members of the National Assembly.
- 21 parties are competing for 96 parliamentary seats. There are 15 candidates for president.
- Presidential candidates must win more than 50 percent of the vote to win the top job.
- If no candidate wins the majority of votes, the top two candidates will face off in a runoff. This did not happen in Namibia.
Who is running for the presidency?
Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah (72): She is SWAPO’s first female leader and is heavily favored to win the election, although experts say she faces strong competition. If she wins, she will be Namibia’s first female president.
Nandi-Ndaitwah was among the members of SWAPO who participated in the struggle for independence in the country. He returned from the United Kingdom to join parliament in 1990 and held a number of cabinet positions over the years. The late President Hage Geingob, who died of cancer in February, he appointed Nandi-Ndaitwah as deputy prime minister and nominated him as his successor before his death.
Although SWAPO is in power, the politician faces several obstacles, experts say. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the party in a highly unequal country where housing and jobs are not held by many, and where corruption is rampant. Young people, in particular, do not believe that SWAPO continues to have power.
While Geingob received more than 80 percent of the vote in 2014, his share in 2019 has dropped to 56 percent. SWAPO similarly lost its two-thirds majority in parliament in 2019. This was the first time this had happened since 1994.
“The influence of the struggle for independence is fading away from SWAPO, because many young people either don’t remember it, or were born after it,” said IPPR’s Hopwood. Another thing that has not been tested is the desire of Namibian men to vote for a female president, the expert added.
Namibia is one of the countries in Africa that has equality between men and women. Almost half of the seats in parliament are held by women, and the prime minister, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, is a woman. However, the Prime Minister is elected, marking the first time that voters have chosen a female leader.
However, Hopwood added that Nandi-Ndaitwah is known to be free of corruption, unlike his SWAPO colleagues.
In a special meeting held on November 12, which was attended by about 16,300 people, including those like security officials who cannot vote on November 27, the politician led the others with 60 percent of the votes.
Break Hours (67): Itula was a youth leader of SWAPO before moving to the UK in the 1970s. There, he studied and practiced dentistry for over 30 years, returning to Namibia in 2013.
In the 2019 elections, Itula made a big splash in politics when he ran as an independent candidate against the late President Geingob, which angered the SWAPO leadership. Itula managed to get 29 percent of the votes. It wasn’t enough to stop Geingob’s second plan, but it was the best any opposition had done against the ruling party.
Itula criticizes the SWAPO government for what he describes as corruption in Namibia. He was expelled from SWAPO in 2020.
Now, he is back under his party Independent Patriots for Change (IPC). He remains popular, especially among young Namibians. Itula has promised economic development for the youth, and wants to reduce corporate taxes so that more foreign companies can move into the country.
If young people turn up in the elections, Itula could threaten SWAPO, as the politician is appealing to young people, said researcher Hopwood. Namibia’s electoral commission said 91 percent of eligible voters registered, with the majority of voters under the age of 30.
“SWAPO is facing a big challenge from Dr Itula and will be worried ahead of the vote,” Hopwood said.
McHenry Venani (47): He is the leader of the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), the main opposition party in Namibia. Although the party has 16 of the 96 seats in the parliament, the most after SWAPO, Venaani only got 5 percent of the vote in 2019 when he ran for the presidency.
Bernadus Swartbooi (47): He leads the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) which is campaigning for the distribution of land to Namibians whose lands were confiscated by German citizens in the 1900s. The LPM has four seats in the parliament. In 2019, Swartbooi, formerly of SWAPO, won 3 percent of the vote.
Job Without Him (37): A university professor leads an Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement that began as an advocacy group. The organization also focuses on land reform policies, and advocates aggressive measures, such as forced land acquisition.
Most of the absentee landowners are from Germany and South Africa, and live in South Africa, Germany or other European countries.
What are the main issues?
Wealth and inequality: Although Namibia is rich in uranium and diamonds, Namibia’s wealth is unequally distributed, dating back to the apartheid era and social inequality. brutal colonialism. It is the second most unequal country in the world after South Africa.
Poverty is widespread, with more than 64 percent of the population living on less than $5.50 per day according to World Bank. Many black Namibians and ethnic minorities are in dire need.
A to punish the droughtin this case, it is destroying the country’s food supply. It is the worst in 100 years, according to the World Food Programme. About 48 percent of the population needs urgent food assistance, and 17 percent of children under the age of five are paralyzed.
Unemployment: About 43 percent of Namibian youth are unemployed, one of the highest rates in the world, according to government statistics last released in 2016. SWAPO’s Nandi-Ndaitwah has pledged to spend 85 billion Namibian dollars ($4.7bn) in the next five years. creating more than 500,000 jobs, but there are questions about how the money will be raised.
Itula IPC aims to liberalize the economy and allow more foreign companies to enter.
Corruption: Successive SWAPO governments have been accused of deep-rooted corruption. The fish rot that started in 2019 they still stink. Fishing is profitable for Namibia and accounts for 20 percent of the country’s export earnings.
Several government officials, including the late President Geingobcame under fire after WikiLeaks released files showing how government officials inspected valuable fish before sending them to an Icelandic company for cash. 6 people, including two SWAPO ministers, he was arrested.
Although Vice President Nandi-Nanditwah is not involved, SWAPO has been criticized for allowing some party members who are still under investigation to campaign for him before the election, such as SWAPO youth secretary Ephraim Nekongo.
Housing problems and land changes: The inequality extends into the ownership of land and property. Namibia urgently needs more than half a million houses to solve its housing crisis, but many people cannot afford to rent because of poverty and high property prices, according to the World Economic Forum. About half a million people live in camps and informal settlements in Windhoek.
Left parties like the Affirmative Repositioning group have promised to build 300,000 houses over five years. Meanwhile, Itula’s IPC has announced a housing crisis.
A land reform programwhich aimed to buy back land from many white farm owners to resettle poor Namibians, did not go well. Farmers are reluctant to sell land, or sell it at a high price, which makes it difficult for the government to find suitable land for resettlement.
Parties like AR have taken what experts call “massive positions”, promising to reclaim 1.4 million hectares (3,500,000) of land from foreigners and absentee landowners. PDM has also promised to provide free land to the people.
What else?
Voting on Wednesday closes at 9pm CAT (19:00 GMT).
The results will be announced the next day, November 28.
However, when the electoral commission goes back to the ballot papers, the results may take a few days to be seen. Multiple vote-counting problems in the 2019 election disrupted the use of electronic card readers and prompted a change.
Experts say Wednesday’s vote should be peaceful like previous elections. However, some experts worry that the delayed results could lead to accusations of fraud or even violence, as seen in Mozambique.
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