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POLITICS-NAMIBIA: SWAPO Wins

Servaas van den Bosch

WINDHOEK, Dec 5 2009 (IPS) - The ruling South West Africa People’s Organisation party (SWAPO) has won legislative elections in Namibia, with voters also giving incumbent President Hifikepunye Pohamba a second five-year term in office.

Newcomers Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) will become the official opposition.

After a delay during which the opposition stopped just short of accusing the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) of rigging the polls, final results were announced late on Dec. 4.

President Pohamba was re-elected with 76 percent of valid ballots. In his acceptance speech on Friday night, Pohamba said that he will be president of all Namibians regardless who has voted for him. He also asked SWAPO’s supporters to show tolerance in their celebrations.

“The fist that’s raised now should not go on to hurt anyone.”

SWAPO also took 54 out of 72 elected seats (74 percent). Although this constitutes the loss of one seat compared to the 2004 elections, SWAPO still holds a comfortable majority.

The biggest gains in these polls were by the breakaway RDP party under former foreign affairs minister Hidipo Hamutenya, which enters parliament with eight seats. Most of these came at the expense of the existing opposition. The Congress of Democrats, largest of the opposition parties in the last parliament, was obliterated at the polls and saw its parliamentary contingent reduced from five members of parliament to just one.

The Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, which competed successfully with SWAPO in the first democratic elections in 1989, was further reduced to two seats (was four in 2004). The Herero-based National Unity Democratic Organisation lost one of its three seats, as did the United Democratic Front.

The All People’s Party, the Republican Party and the South West Africa National Union each got one seat, while the Communist Party, the Democratic Party of Namibia, Monitor Aksie Group, the Namibia Democratic Movement for Change and the Namibia Democratic Party failed to get any.

Graham Hopwood, a political analyst who tracked the election for Election Watch, observed that women’s representation in parliament has dropped noticeably.

“Just 16 out of 72 MP’s are female,” noted Hopwood. “Fifteen on the SWAPO benches and one, Agnes Limbo of RDP on the opposition benches. That’s 22 percent, significantly down on the previous National Assembly, and a long way from the SADC target of 50 percent by 2015.”

Gender minister Marlene Mugunda, number 63 on the SWAPO list is out. Minister of environment and tourism Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, currently in Copenhagen to clinch a climate deal, was placed number 55 on the list and just failed to make the cut in Namibia’s proportional representation system.