A Historic Moment

Suoma Mushimba never thought Namibia would have a woman president so soon.

Mushimba, who lives at Onheleiwa village in the Ohangwena region’s Okongo constituency, says she changed her mind in 2022, after Swapo’s then-minister of international relations and cooperation, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, was re-elected as Swapo vice president.

Mushimba shared this during The Namibian’s recent visit to Onheleiwa, the village where president-elect Nandi-Ndaitwah was born.

While many call the 72-year-old leader “honourable” and now “president-elect”, Mushimba, who is in her 60s, says the villagers call her by her totem name, ‘Meekulu Mukwangobe’.

In Oshiwambo culture, ‘Mukwangobe’ is used to refer to women from the cow totem.

“I never thought I would see a woman lead our country. I only saw it coming during the 2022 Swapo campaigns,” Mushimba says. She says Nandi-Ndaitwah represents strength and wisdom.

“We believe she will understand our needs and make decisions that uplift women like us,” she says.

Lavinia Namweya, Swapo’s coordinator for the Mbulunganga branch, says one night in 2014, she dreamt of Nandi-Ndaitwah rising to the Namibian Presidency. “I dreamt about this moment long ago,” she says.

She says she shared the dream with Nandi-Ndaitwah. “She smiled and said she liked it,” Namweya recounts.

She says she did not understand this dream, because at that time, Namibians were expected to vote for former president Hage Geingob.

Namweya, who says she befriended Nandi-Ndaitwah following their meeting at Okongo parish in 2009, says Nandi-Ndaitwah enjoys offering visitors to her house food.

“I feel with her as president, our country is in good hands,” she says.

Frieda David, the chairperson of the Okongo Village Council, says Nandi-Ndaitwah’s ascension to the highest office in Namibia represents the woman’s voice, and that women’s issues will be addressed.

Letisia Mweshitya from Oshiti sha Haihonya village, also in Okongo constituency, says Okongo was always perceived as a less significant place, and people from other towns would look down on people from Okongo, regarding the town as far from civilisation.

“We are excited that the next president is from Okongo. As women from Okongo, we will unite and support our president. We do not want her to fail,” Mweshitya says.

She believes Nandi-Ndaitwah would not be the last president from the Okongo area.

Onheleiwa village secretary Valma Nghiwete says she is happy the incoming president is from her village.

“We are very proud and we believe our village, the Ohangwena region, and the whole country will develop.”

She says women from her village want to follow in Nandi-Ndaitwah’s footsteps.

“We will behave very well as we should. We do not want to embarrass our president,” she says

Nandi-Ndaitwah, who is known by her initials ‘NNN’, was elected as Namibia’s first woman president in the disputed 27 November elections.

She won with 57% of the vote, extending Swapo’s 34-year rule.

The elections tested Swapo’s grip on power, with the main opposition, the Independent Patriots for Change, attracting some support from younger people, the majority of whom are unemployed.

Nandi-Ndaitwah’s election as Namibia’s incoming president follows examples such as Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who made history on the African continent when she became Africa’s first elected woman president in 2005.

Sirleaf was followed by Malawi’s Joyce Banda in 2012.

Nandi-Ndaitwah will be the fourth sitting woman president in southern Africa, following Tanzania’s Samia Hassan.