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

If issues figure out as Namibia’s long-time governing celebration hopes, the rustic can be electing its first feminine head of state this week.

However a temper of disillusionment with liberation actions in southern Africa, coupled with the anti-incumbency feeling in lots of portions of the arena, would possibly pose a danger to what can be an historical success.

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

Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan is recently Africa’s simplest feminine president, so Nandi-Ndaitwah can be becoming a member of an unique membership if she is victorious.

Her celebration, utterly dominant for 3 a long time, noticed a big drop in its strengthen within the closing common election. It is going into Wednesday’s vote amid an unemployment charge of nineteen% – virtually the similar because it was once 30 years in the past – afflicted executive price range, questions on corruption and top ranges of inequality.

Status in Nandi-Ndaitwah’s method is her primary challenger a number of the 14 different applicants – Panduleni Itula of the Unbiased Patriots for Exchange (IPC) celebration.

She may be up in opposition to a standard and male-dominated political tradition within the nation.

However she is a depended on chief of this carefully populated and non violent nation having served in top executive place of business for 1 / 4 of a century.

“I’ve all the time believed in teamwork, that’s what made me succeed in what I’ve completed,” she has mentioned.

Identified for her hands-on and pragmatic taste of management, the vice-president may be fiercely dependable to the celebration, which she joined as an adolescent.

At 14 she become a part of the motion resisting rule from South Africa, which had ruled the rustic – then referred to as South West Africa – because the finish of International Conflict One and later presented the racist gadget of apartheid.

She was once recognised for her tenacity and organisational ability as chief of Swapo’s Formative years League, which become a stepping stone to her political profession, which has integrated ministerial roles in overseas affairs, tourism, kid welfare and knowledge.

She has garnered a wealth of information and enjoy that would stand her in excellent stead will have to she get into the riding seat.

“She turns out so smart and candy and type, even in the way in which she tries to mention the entirety in any such method that even like me will perceive,” Laimi, a possible voter, informed the BBC within the capital, Windhoek.

“Itula is sort of a new piece of bijou along with his glasses, his good swimsuit and his assured stroll, however possibly he blinds you along with his shine,” mentioned her buddy Maria.

Each are younger adults who’ve been not able to search out jobs.

A skilled dentist, Itula, 67, was once himself as soon as a Swapo stalwart however was once expelled from the celebration in 2020 after runnig as an impartial candidate in opposition to President Hage Geingob within the 2019 ballot.

He had additionally been a adolescence chief and spent a while in jail prior to going into exile in the United Kingdom within the early Eighties. He returned to Namibia in 2013.

Six years later, he charismatically got here crashing into the entrance row of Namibian politics, difficult Geingob within the presidential election after pronouncing the Swapo procedure for opting for its candidate was once wrong.

Itula’s intervention in that election ended in Swapo getting its lowest ever percentage – 56% – within the presidential election and in addition dropping its two-thirds majority in parliament.

As any person who had a qualified lifestyles out of doors politics, he has an enchantment to the 50% of the 1.5 million citizens who’re below the age of 35, lots of whom need financial exchange, a task or a measurable spice up to their earning.

His daring and every now and then brash taste, rejecting the extra staid political rhetoric of Nandi-Ndaitwah, has noticed him win strengthen amongst trade other people and the rising city intelligentsia.

However whilst Itula is fast off the mark and eloquent, the vice-president chooses her phrases correctly, and speaks slowly and intentionally.

Nandi-Ndaitwah seeks solidarity and teamwork, emphasising group, interest and care, and as such, reaches proper all the way down to the grass roots.

And because the first lady with an opportunity of turning into the rustic’s president, she carries the hope of a few ladies who desire a exchange from the patriarchal society.

On the other hand, Nandi-Ndaitwah represents the “attempted and depended on” old skool of Namibia’s liberation battle, whilst Itula represents the conceivable “wind of exchange” in a political panorama wanting a facelift.

Consistent with political analyst Henning Melber, the shut competition between the 2 main applicants may imply that the presidential election will cross into an extraordinary 2nd spherical run-off, which is needed if no-one will get greater than part of the votes solid.

In neighbouring South Africa, the African Nationwide Congress, in energy since 1994, was once compelled right into a coalition following Might’s common election. Whilst in Botswana – simply to the east – the Botswana Democratic Birthday party, dominant for just about six a long time, crashed to a humiliating defeat on the finish of closing month.

Swapo needs to steer clear of the similar destiny.

The winner on Wednesday would be the candidate who can also be maximum depended on on problems similar to adolescence unemployment, corruption, well being care, schooling and infrastructure development, whilst additionally with the ability to bolster the financial system.

This may want to occur with no need to unload the rustic’s huge herbal assets to overseas bidders – similar to off-shore gasoline in addition to lithium and different crucial metals.

Itula’s IPC was once no longer a part of the elections in 2019, however has carried out strongly in native elections since then and has the semblance of a reputable political selection. It has received reward for how it has run some native governments.

Nandi-Ndaitwah’s largest asset could also be that she is, as Namibian diplomat Tuliameni Kalomoh as soon as said, noticed as “incorruptible, each morally and materially”.