Namibia's President Geingob reelected
Namibia's incumbent President Hage Geingob has been reelected for a second term, after garnering 56.3 percent of votes in the elections, ahead of his rival, the Electoral Commission of Namibia, or ECN, said on Saturday.
Panduleni Itula, who was running as an independent, got 29.4 percent of votes, and the leader of the official opposition party, McHenry Venaani, was in third position with 5.3 percent.
The 2019 election was seen as the most challenging for the South West Africa People's Organization that has ruled Namibia since it gained independence from South Africa in 1990. Unlike previous elections, the party lost its regular two-thirds majority.
The ruling party secured 63 seats in the legislative assembly, down from 77 seats, while the opposition, the Popular Democratic Movement, got 16 seats, an increase of five over the number held in 2014.
President Geingob thanked his supporters for electing him and congratulated the entire nation for the peaceful elections.
"I'm proud that we can have free and fair elections, no fighting, no attacking each other, and free movement was allowed," he said.
Announcing the results on Saturday, ECN chairperson Notemba Tjipueja expressed gratitude that the country was able to hold peaceful elections despite differences and cultural diversity.
"Some of the delays experienced in the announcement of the results were due to ensuring that any discrepancies were identified and rectified before the announcement of these results," she said.
A preliminary statement by observer missions called the election free, fair and "generally peaceful", despite the troubles reported with some electronic voting machines.
About 1.3 million voters were registered for Wednesday's election, with a turnout of 60 percent. The tightly contested election attracted 11 contenders.
President Geingob, 78, is the third leader of Namibia since independence. In his second term, he faces the challenge of addressing corruption and youth unemployment as well as setting the economy on a growth trajectory.
According to Trading Economics, the youth unemployment rate in Namibia increased to 46.1 percent in 2018 from 43.40 percent in 2016.
The country's real GDP contracted by 0.1 percent in 2018 after having slumped by 0.9 percent in 2017, the World Bank Group statistics indicated.
According to Bank of Namibia, despite the agricultural sector being a priority in the country's national development plans, progress in the sector has been limited. There has been high reliance on imports of agricultural products.
Namibia imports about 60 percent of its food requirements, and also consistently records production deficits in most crop categories.
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(China Daily Global 12/02/2019 page7)
