Namibia’s vice president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, was among the first to vote in Wednesday’s elections, which could see her become the country’s first female leader.
As the ruling SWAPO party faces its toughest challenge in 34 years, Nandi-Ndaitwah, a 72-year-old veteran of the South West Africa People’s Organisation, cast her ballot in Windhoek, the capital. Voters turned out in long lines outside many polling stations across the sparsely populated nation.
Nandi-Ndaitwah urged the approximately 1.5 million registered voters to cast their ballots before the polls close at 9:00 pm (1900 GMT). “This vote will impact the next five years of your life and the lives of every Namibian and anyone visiting our country,” she said, stressing the importance of the election. She is widely known by her initials, NNN.
SWAPO has ruled the mineral-rich country since its independence in 1990, but with ongoing issues such as high unemployment and persistent inequality, Nandi-Ndaitwah may face the possibility of a historic second-round vote if she fails to secure more than half the votes in the first round.
Her main rival is Panduleni Itula, a 67-year-old former dentist and lawyer who founded the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) party in 2020 after leaving SWAPO.
In the 2019 elections, Itula secured 29 percent of the vote, significantly outperforming expectations despite losing to then-SWAPO leader Hage Geingob, who won 56 percent. Geingob, who passed away in February, had won nearly 87 percent of the vote in the previous election.
At a polling station in Windhoek, Itula expressed optimism about his party’s chances. “We will march toward a new dawn, a new era of how we conduct public affairs in this country,” he said, confident that his four-year-old party could “unseat the revolutionary movement.”
