Nandi-Ndaitwah becomes Namibia’s first female president

WINDHOEK, 03 DEC (NAMPA) – Namibia made history on Tuesday by electing the country’s first female president, 34 years after independence.
Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, representing the Swapo Party, won the presidential elections, beating her closest rival, Panduleni Itula of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), by 354 454 votes.
Namibians went to the polls from 27 to 30 November 2024 to elect their leaders in the Presidential and National Assembly elections.
Official results released by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) Tuesday evening indicate that Nandi-Ndaitwah secured 638 560 votes, while Itula received 284 106 votes. A total of 15 presidential candidates and 22 political parties participated in the election.
Born on 29 October 1952, Nandi-Ndaitwah has served in a number of high ranking portfolios in government and is presently the vice president of Namibia, since 04 February 2024.
Before then, she served as the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, from 2012. From 2010 to 2012, Nandi-Ndaitwah served as the Minister of Environment and Tourism.
Other portfolios she has served in include Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Minister of Women Affairs and Child Welfare, Director General Of Women Affairs in the Office of the Prime Minister, and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In 2017, Nandi-Ndaitwah was elected vice president of the Swapo Party, making her the first woman to serve in that position.
According to the ECN results, Swapo’s main opposition is IPC. Swapo garnered 583 300 votes for the National Assembly elections, while IPC got 220 809 votes for the National Assembly elections. As such, Swapo got a total 51 seats in Parliament, while IPC got 20 votes.
The IPC has however declared that it would not accept or recognise the election results after the extension of voting prompted by shortages of ballot papers, amongst other issues on voting day. The party has indicated that they are consulting a team of lawyers to challenge the 2024 Presidential and National Assembly election results.
Itula at a press conference earlier this week said the matter will be dealt with on an urgent basis in the electoral court. In the last presidential elections in 2019 Itula, who ran as an independent candidate, scored 242 657 votes, constituting 29.4 per cent of the total votes. Swapo’s presidential candidate at the time, the late President Hage Geingob scored 464 703 votes, or 56.3 per cent.
(NAMPA)
EB/AS/EK