Namibia has elected its first feminine chief, with Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah declared the winner of final week’s presidential election in a end result that can prolong the ruling Swapo occasion’s 34-year maintain on energy.
Nandi-Ndaitwah, the present vice-president, gained with 57% of the vote, based on official outcomes, defying predictions that she may be compelled right into a runoff. Swapo has dominated the nation since its independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.
“The Namibian nation has voted for peace and stability,” Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, mentioned after the ultimate outcomes had been introduced late on Tuesday.
Nandi-Ndaitwah was a member of the underground independence motion in Namibia within the Nineteen Seventies. She was promoted from overseas minister to vice-president in February, after president Hage Geingob died whereas in workplace.
Opposition events have rejected the outcomes after the election was marred by technical issues, together with shortages of poll papers and different points, inflicting election officers to increase voting till Saturday. The opposition events declare the extension was unlawful and intend to problem the leads to courtroom.
Panduleni Itula, 67, who practised as a dentist in Whitley Bay close to Newcastle earlier than returning to Namibia in 2013, got here second with 25.5% of the vote, under the 29% share he secured in 2019.
Nandi-Ndaitwah additionally outperformed her occasion, which acquired 53% of the parliamentary vote, down from 65% 5 years in the past. Itula’s new Impartial Patriots for Change (IPC) occasion additionally got here second, with 20% of the vote.
She was broadly considered as a gradual hand, a seasoned diplomat not tainted by the corruption scandals that had engulfed another members of Swapo.
Her triumph additionally implies that Namibia bucks a development of incumbent liberation actions being punished by restive youthful voters in southern Africa.
This yr, South Africa’s African Nationwide Congress misplaced its parliamentary majority for the primary time since apartheid ended, the occasion that had dominated Botswana since independence from Britain in 1966 was booted from workplace and Mozambique has been hit by protests for nearly two months since an allegedly rigged election.
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