I’m well prepared to be president – Nandi-Ndaitwah

President-elect Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah is set to make history as the first female head of state of Namibia when she is inaugurated as the country’s fifth president on Friday.

Nandi-Ndaitwah, who recently became the first female president of Swapo, won the presidential election in November 2024 and the Supreme Court ratified her victory, dismissing an opposition to the outcome of last year’s election.

The Electoral Commission of Namibia announced that the 73-year-old presidential candidate won the election with 57% of the vote. Her closest rival, Panduleni Itula from the Independent Patriots for Change, received 26%.

Nandi-Ndaitwah is taking over from president Nangolo Mbumba, who is stepping down after 13 months as head of state. Mbumba, the former vice president, completed the presidential term of his predecessor, Hage Geingob, who died while in office on 4 February 2024.

Nandi-Ndaitwah, who was also the first Namibian woman to serve as vice president, says she is ready to take charge of state affairs, as mandated by Swapo.

“When the Swapo members asked me to stand as a vice-president, they were telling me exactly what was in it for me. And I said yes, I am there to serve the people of Namibia. Since then, they have been preparing me for the job which they have assigned me. So, I am prepared,” Nandi-Ndaitwah said on Wednesday.

The former deputy prime minister and minister of international relations and cooperation was elected as Swapo vice president at the party’s ordinary congress in November 2022. In accordance with the party’s tradition, this positioned her as the ruling party’s presidential candidate for the 2024 general elections.

Earlier this month, Nandi-Ndaitwah became the president of Swapo, making her the first woman to lead the former liberation movement in its 65-year history.

She stated that the Swapo election manifesto outlines the programmes for her administration over the next five years. The party campaigned on promises of economic growth, improvements in agriculture and water management, youth empowerment, decent housing and sanitation, as well as energy and infrastructure development.

“My programme is already designed, and it is designed in that Swapo implementation plan. There are laws that need to be amended to enable the programmes to be carried forward. Some have already been amended, too, since the adoption of the plan to today.
“And there are those, because of the time, they could not. It is my plan, my wish, that in the first two or three months of the parliament, those laws must be dealt with. One of them is the Land Act,” she said.

On Thursday, chief justice Peter Shivute swore in 96 members of the National Assembly, where the ruling party holds 51 seats, which it secured in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

Nandi-Ndaitwah stated that the drafting of the Land Bill is complete and that it only needs to be tabled in the National Assembly.
Food security is among Nandi-Ndaitwah’s priority programmes.

“You know our manifesto has said in the next five years we must put into production 130 000 hectares of land and that land is not defined, but I know it can be both in commercial and communal land. Because with deep analysis, you realise that even in the communal land, there is some land which is unutilised,” she said.

Before her inauguration, the president-elect visited government green scheme projects in the Kavango East region, as well as some resettlement farms in central and southern Namibia.

“I undertook a visit to some regions, and I was just asking to visit in each region, two resettlement farms, one which is considered productive, successful, and one which is poor. There I have also seen how much land was bought by the government, but is underutilised,” she said, referencing the government resettlement programme.

The president-elect expressed hope that her selection of cabinet members will be both suitable and sufficiently committed to ensuring the success of her administration.

“We are many, 3.1 million, but we have limited space and those who are going to be in that space, they should really use it effectively for us to ensure service delivery.

“As head of state, I have a responsibility to create a balance between the government, the executive and the legislature. So now that is the team of Namibians I have, who have to be divided between the two arms of state for effective service delivery to be realised,” she said.

– Nampa