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Namibia - Politics

Key Facts

  • Last Elections: November 2004 (Presidential and Legislative)
  • Next Elections: 2009
  • Head of State: President Hifikepunye Pohamba
  • Head of Government: The President
  • Ruling Party: SWAPO
  • Independence: 21 March 1990

UN-supervised elections were held in November 1989. Ten political parties stood, including SWAPO, which gained 57% of the votes and 41 out of the 72 seats in the Constituent Assembly. In February 1990 Dr Sam Nujoma was elected by the Constituent Assembly to be the first president of an independent Namibia. Nujoma and SWAPO were returned to power in the 1994 elections. SWAPO won decisive majorities in the December 1994 elections, gaining 76% of the popular vote in the presidential and 73% in the parliamentary polls.

In late November 1998, parliament passed a constitutional amendment to allow Nujoma to serve more than two terms. Namibia’s High Commissioner to the UK, Ben Ulenga, resigned in protest against both the amendment and Namibia’s military involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ulenga later formed a new political grouping which was registered as the Congress of Democrats (CoD).

However, the elections in November/December 1999 produced a clear win for both SWAPO and President Nujoma. Official results showed that Nujoma received close to 75% of the votes cast in the presidential poll, while Ulenga took 11% and the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) candidate Kautuuture Kaura 10%. In the parliamentary contest, SWAPO took 76% of the votes and 55 seats, with the CoD (10%) and DTA (9.5%) each taking seven seats and in contention to be the official opposition, until April 2000 when the DTA formed an alliance with the United Democratic Front (two seats) and assumed the role.

In 2001 Nujoma announced he would not seek a fourth term of office and, at its 2004 congress, Hifikepunye Pohamba was chosen as the SWAPO candidate for the presidential election in November 2004.

During 2003 the government proceeded with the redistribution of land on a ‘willing-buyer, willing-seller’ basis, as guaranteed under the constitution. When the programme slipped due to shortage of finance, it targeted some 300 under-exploited farms with foreign owners for compulsory purchase.

The November 2004 presidential and legislative elections were won in landslide victories by Pohamba (76.4% of votes) and SWAPO (75% of the votes and 55 of 72 seats). Ulenga received 7.3% of the votes in the presidential election and Kaura 5.1%, while in the legislative election CoD won five seats and DTA four.

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