Swapo’s Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah faces Panduleni Itula from IPC

If things go as Namibia’s long-ruling party hopes, the country will elect its first female head of state this week.

But disillusionment with liberation movements in southern Africa, coupled with anti-incumbency feeling in many parts of the world, could pose a threat to what would have been an achievement. history.

Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, is the flag bearer for Swapo, the party that has led the country since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.

Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan is currently Africa’s only female president, so Nandi-Ndaitwah will join an exclusive club if she wins.

Her party, utterly dominant for three decades, saw its support plummet in the last general election. It will be voted on Wednesday amid an unemployment rate of 19% – almost the same as 30 years ago – troubled government finances, questions about corruption and high levels of inequality.

Standing in Nandi-Ndaitwah’s way is her main rival among 14 other candidates – Panduleni Itula of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) party.

She also railed against the country’s traditional and male-dominated political culture.

But she is a trusted leader of this peaceful and sparsely populated country, having held senior government positions for a quarter of a century.

“I have always believed in teamwork, that is what made me achieve what I achieved,” she said.

Known for her practical and pragmatic leadership style, the vice president is also fiercely loyal to the party she joined as a teenager.

At the age of 14, she joined the movement against South African rule, which had ruled the country – then called South West Africa – since the end of World War I and then introduced the system of apartheid apartheid.

She was recognized for her tenacity and organizational talent as leader of the Swapo Youth League, which became a stepping stone to her political career, which included ministerial roles in foreign affairs, tourism, child welfare and information.

She has accumulated a lot of knowledge and experience that could help her if she were to get in the driver’s seat.

“She seems very wise and sweet and kind, even in the way she tries to say things in a way that even people like I can also understand.”

“Itula is like a new piece of jewelry with his glasses, smart suit and confident walk, but he can blind you with his brilliance,” says her friend Maria.

Both are young men who have not found jobs.

A dentist by training, Itula, 67, was once a Swapo supporter but was expelled from the party in 2020 after running as an independent candidate against President Hage Geingob in the election. probe 2019.

He was also a youth leader and spent time in prison before going into exile in England in the early 1980s. He returned to Namibia in 2013.

Six years later, he swept charismatically into the forefront of Namibian politics, challenging Geingob in the presidential election after saying Swapo’s process for selecting its candidates was flawed.

Itula’s intervention in that election caused Swapo to receive its lowest ever margin – 56% – in the presidential election and also lose its two-thirds majority in parliament.

As someone with a professional life outside of politics, he has appeal to 50% of the 1.5 million voters under 35 years old, many of whom want economic and job change. or a measurable increase in income.

His bold and sometimes brash style, which rejected the harder political rhetoric of Nandi-Ndaitwah, helped him win the support of businessmen and the growing urban intelligentsia.

But while Itula was quick to deflect and eloquent, the vice president chose his words wisely and spoke slowly and deliberately.

Nandi-Ndaitwah seeks harmony and teamwork, emphasizes community, passion and care, and as such, reaches out to the roots.

And as the first woman to have the opportunity to become the country’s president, she carries with her the hope of a number of women who want change from a patriarchal society.

However, Nandi-Ndaitwah represents the “tried and trusted” old school of Namibian liberation struggles, while Itula represents the possible “wind of change” in the political landscape needs to be innovated.

According to political analyst Henning Melber, the tight competition between the two leading candidates could mean the presidential election will enter an unprecedented second round, which is required if no one takes received more than half of the votes.

In neighboring South Africa, the African National Congress, in power since 1994, was forced to form a coalition after May’s general election. Meanwhile in Botswana – just to the east – the Botswana Democratic Party, dominant for nearly six decades, has collapsed. humiliating defeat at the end of last month.

Swapo wants to avoid the same fate.

Wednesday’s winner will be the candidate most trusted on issues such as youth unemployment, corruption, health care, education and infrastructure improvement, and has the ability to promote economy.

This will need to happen without selling off the country’s vast natural resources to foreign bidders – such as offshore gas as well as lithium and other essential metals.

Itula’s IPC did not participate in the 2019 election, but has performed strongly in local elections since then and appears to be a credible political alternative. It has won praise for the way it runs some local governments.

Nandi-Ndaitwah’s greatest asset may be the fact that she is, as Namibian diplomat Tuliameni Kalomoh once declared, considered to be “of integrity, both morally and materially.”