A bit of history
The legal predecessor of Namibia is the colony founded in 1884 under the name German South West Africa, which was in fact under German rule until 1915, and officially until 1919. After the suppression of the Herero uprising of 1904-1907, 75-80% of the population was exterminated. The Herero and 35% of the Witbooi Namas allies were killed by German colonial forces, with the result that the indigenous Ovambo tribe in the northern part of the Herero was wiped out. The country became a majority of about 50-53 percent.
After 1919, the “German” designation was removed from the territory of the country under South African rule. The new leadership formally controlled the colony until 1978, and practically until 1989-1990, when it extended its system of apartheid, apartheid, which became the state ideology in 1948. In response, the Ovambo living in the northern part of the country began to Organization: A mass political organization was first established in 1957 under the leadership of the Ovamboland People's Congress, and then in 1960, covering the entire population of the country, under the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The name is SWAPO (South West African People's Organization).
The main program of SWAPO, a party with Marxist roots, was social ownership of the means of production, land distribution (following the nationalization of large white estates), and the abolition of apartheid. However, as the Soviet Union weakened, the party leadership abandoned its more radical program points and moved ever closer to Western countries: during his visit to Bonn in 1980, Sam Nujoma, the party's president in exile at the time, presented himself as a Christian. He was a politician for the West German leadership and made friends with Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who, in the colors of the liberal FDP, had been West German state foreign minister in the centre-left SPD-FDP governments of Helmut Schmidt and then foreign minister. Center-right CDU/CSU-FDP Helmut Kohl.
Since 1990, SWAPO has always won all National Assembly and presidential elections. From 1990 to 2005, the country was headed by Sam Nujoma, who was a local freedom fighter in the mold of Nelson Mandela, and from 2005 to 2015, Nujoma's former Minister of Lands and Population, Hifikepone Pohamba, served as president. Pohamba was succeeded by Haji Geingob, who was no longer of Ovambo origin, but came from one of the most wretched tribes of the last century, the Damaras. Damaras were generally Herero slaves even before German rule.
Is support for SWAPO waning?
Although by the end of the 2000s an agreement had been reached with Germany on reparations related to the Herero uprising, and investments are also coming from the People's Republic of China, SWAPO's support appears to be eroding since the last presidential election. Nujoma, who removed from the country's constitution the section of the law that doubled the president's term to five years, received just over 76 percent of the vote in both 1994 and 1999. Pohamba was able to repeat this twice, in 2004 and 2009. but 2014 Ben Geingob's outstanding victory of 86% can be attributed to the complete lack of an opposition alternative, as in 2019 he managed to collect “only” 56% of the vote against more established opposition candidates.
Until now, in the two-round presidential election system, a second round has not been necessary at all, since all SWAPO members have so far exceeded the 50 percent approval rating. But by 2024, competition may become open in the changing political environment.
Social peace and unresolved issues
Unlike neighboring South Africa and the notorious Zimbabwe, Namibia's society is not a clearly racially divided nation. Whites felt the transition from apartheid much more than they did in South Africa. However, the relationship between skin color and social status remains strong today.
The issue of land distribution is one of the most unresolved issues. Far-left critics often blame SWAPO leaders for its subversive actions. More than 50% of the country's arable land is mostly owned by about 25,000 descendants of German settlers, and a smaller portion by Afrikaners, i.e. Boer landowners who settled under South African rule. More than 800,000 km2 In a country of 2.8 million people, eight times larger than Hungary, they tried to resolve this disparity through state intervention. Some state lands were privatized, and some large properties were purchased and then distributed to the poor. However, far-left public figures want more than that: to confiscate arable land from whites and redistribute it among blacks.
Adolf Hitler is back too, but is that still to be expected?
In 2020, local elections in Namibia received significant attention: a politician with the first name Adolf Hitler, SWAPO member Adolf Hitler Onuna, won a representative seat with 85 percent support. The name Adolf is very common even among blacks in Namibia, named after the first German colonizer, Adolf Luderitz. However, when asked by a reporter why he got his second name, Owonona was unable to give a satisfactory answer: he attributed it to his father's ideas and incomplete knowledge of history.
The 2024 presidential election, when the country is likely to elect a female president, could see much more significant changes than this.
On the other hand, Netumbo Nandi-Ndayetwah's chances could be improved or worsened by the fact that she is a woman. The minister formerly responsible for environmental protection and tourism is also vying for the presidency of a country whose society defines itself in terms of masculine values: the majority (about 80 percent) of the population are evangelical Christians – both in terms of active religiosity and gender roles. -More conservative than the evangelical church community in Germany and Scandinavia, which may have a negative impact on support for the politician.
On the other hand, it may be useful for female politicians to be more easily linked through social image to authentic leftist public and social policy, especially in the case of the African Left Party where the SWAPO Women's Council exists. It is considered a historically important party organisation, having effectively assisted the resistance until 1990. However, the most important factor may be whether Nandi Ndayetwah can respond effectively to criticism over the land issue.
His main opponent is Panduleni Itula, a defector from SWAPO, who is currently a dentist and man. He entered the political arena through his popular democracy campaign, winning less than 30% in the 2019 presidential elections. However, if he is able to attract the large masses of poor people (according to the World Bank, 44% of the population lives in so-called multidimensional poverty That is, they do not have access to health care, education, or work in general). (And public safety is bad where they live.) If he can promise qualitative change, it is easy to imagine that 2024 will be the year in which a second round is held for the first time in the history of Namibian presidential elections.
The author is a historian and junior researcher at the Africa Research Institute in Ubuda.
(Cover Photo: Netombo Nandi-Ndayitwah on July 27, 2023. Photo: Maxim Konstantinov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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