Hage Geingob re-elected but ruling party takes hit at the polls, with two-thirds parliamentary majority whittled down

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

Namibia’s president has won another term but the longtime ruling party has lost its powerful two-thirds majority in its most challenging election since independence nearly 30 years ago.

The southern African nation’s electoral commission said on Saturday that the president, Hage Geingob, received 56% of the vote while opposition challenger Panduleni Itula had 29%.

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Itula made history as the first independent candidate for the presidency, though he retained his ruling party membership. The leader of the official opposition party, McHenry Venaani, came in third with 5.3%.

The results showed a sharp decrease in support for Geingob, down from 87% in the previous election in 2014. Public frustration has been high over corruption scandals and unemployment.

“It was a tough campaign,” Geingob said. “I campaigned like hell.”

Geingob told cheering crowds that he was proud the elections were free and fair.

“I am just a proud Namibian that we could have free and fair elections, no fighting, no attacking each other, free movement was allowed,” he said.

In the legislative vote to choose 96 members of parliament, the ruling party lost its two-thirds majority after it secured 63 seats, down from 77, while the official opposition party, Venaani’s Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), will hold 16 seats, improving from its 2014 total of five.

Opposition leader Venaani told Reuters that they were considering approaching the courts over “anomalies and irregularities” during the election.

About 1.3 million voters were registered for Wednesday’s election. Turnout was 60%.

While troubles were reported with some electronic voting machines, a preliminary statement by observer missions called the election free, fair and “generally peaceful”. It said 62% of polling stations opened on time.

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Some Namibians expressed frustration over what they considered the slow pace of vote-counting.

“The counting, accuracy and verification process leave us more confused. One would think that the reason why we opted for [electronic voting machines] is for the purposes of effectiveness and efficiency,” said a political analyst, Ndumba Kamwanyah. “But that really is turning out to be the opposite. It seems we haven’t quite mastered how to use those voting machines to our advantage.”

A sputtering economy, one of Namibia’s worst-ever droughts and the biggest corruption scandal in its history weighed on support for Geingob. The economy has been stuck in recession for nearly three years, hurt by a drought that has ravaged agricultural export crops, as well as by unprofitably low prices for Namibia’s main hard commodities, uranium and diamonds.

A scandal – in which two ministers were alleged to have conspired to dole out fishing licences to Iceland’s biggest fishing firm, Samherji, in return for kickbacks – also has taken the shine off the ruling party.