Namibia’s constitutional continuity and triumphs in gender representation were rightfully celebrated the world over throughout 2025.
A closer look reveals a nation which may be grappling with the essential components of democracy, free and fair elections, rule of law and civil freedoms and liberties gradually weakening, causing the democracy to become shallow, less substantive and more fragile without entirely collapsing.
This paradoxical period was defined by formal structures of the republic remaining robust while the participatory substance of the social contract showed signs of fraying.
For a country slowly transitioning from a dominant ruling party system into a competitive multiparty democracy, the events of 2025 provided both a surge of symbolic hope and a sobering warning about the reality of representation without results.
Namibia’s eighth administration said it would focus on addressing corruption, improving service delivery, and managing the economy, including creating 500 000 jobs.
Multiparty democracy seems to be entrenched in the Namibian psyche.
In 2024, Afrobarometer found that 74% of Namibians support elections as the best way to choose their leaders, while only 25% said other methods for choosing the country’s leaders would be preferable. The survey also found that 87% of respondents felt “somewhat free” or “completely free” to join any political organisation, while 90% said they were free to choose who to vote for without feeling pressured.
FEMALE FRONT
The most heralded event of 2025 was the inauguration of Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah as the fifth president on 21 March 2025. This was a moment of profound historical weight, as she became the first woman to lead the nation.
Namibia became the third African country to achieve a gender-balanced Cabinet, with over 57% of ministers being women. Nandi-Ndaitwah also appointed a woman, Lucia Witbooi (64) as her deputy.
Beyond the shattering of this significant glass ceiling, the transition itself served as a testament to the resilience of the Namibian constitutional framework. Following the passing of President Hage Geingob in early 2024 and the interim stewardship of Nangolo Mbumba, the smooth handover of power reaffirmed a national commitment to the rule of law.
“The President’s pragmatic and performance-orientated leadership style headlined 2025 across social, political and economic landscapes,” said political analyst Rakkel Andreas.
The elevation of Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila as the first female Speaker of the National Assembly further diversified the leadership of the legislative branch, suggesting a modernised political culture.
However, despite the historic nature of the new mandate, the presidency remained committed to a highly centralised executive system.
There is a growing concern regarding executive centralism, exemplified by recent moves to consolidate control over petroleum under the presidency. This trend toward power centralisation, rather than the decentralisation necessary for responsive leadership, suggests an iron-fist approach to governance. While this may be a bid to solidify a specific vision, it risks creating a vacuum of servant leadership where power is concentrated within a party hierarchy, a particular slate, rather than being distributed among the people.
SHIFTING POLITICS
The 2024 elections fundamentally altered Namibia’s legislative landscape by reducing Swapo’s dominance to a slim three-seat majority, winning only 51 out of 96 seats. This shift prevented the executive from passing major legislation without genuine cooperation and consensus with the opposition in 2025.
Consequently, cooperation between parties enhances parliamentary oversight, moving the nation toward a more accountable and diverse power structure.
The National Assembly only passed a record low two budget-related pieces of legislation in 2025. The ruling party has blamed the opposition’s insistence on bombarding the executive with questions daily in Parliament, for the lack of bills. However, the opposition points to the Speaker’s insistence on keeping regular hours and an absent and inexperienced Cabinet for the lack of productivity in parliament.
The local and regional elections held on 26 November 2025 served as a stark warning for the health of the democracy. While the 2024 national elections boasted a high turnout of over 76%, the local polls saw participation plummet to just 40.7%.
Andreas, a Windhoek-based analyst, expected the turnout to be lower for the local and regional elections, which she said signalled either lower trust levels or disengagement from good governance.
The gap between the 76.5% turnout for the presidency and the 40.7% for local authorities indicates that stability is anchored at the national level while the sub-national foundations are weakening.
“These results are rarely in causal relation to possible deterioration of our democracy, as stability appears to be firmly anchored in what happens at the national level,” she said.
This deficit in electoral legitimacy suggests that many citizens no longer believe local government structures are effective tools for change.
This rational abstention occurs seemingly as a result of consistent poor local service delivery, which makes the act of participating feel hollow.
The institution at the heart of our democracy, the ECN, faced persistent trust deficits and friction with its stakeholders. Legal challenges regarding previous poll extensions and budgetary constraints, which forced them to stop funding political party observers for ballot printing in the last election, strained its relationship with opposition stakeholders.
The ECN’s aggressively poor communications, highlighted by both the SADC and African Union observer missions after the 2024 polls, continue unabated, with the institution simply not answering questions from journalists.
DIFFERENT
While their peers toppled governments elsewhere, Namibian initiatives like the Youth Development Fund and promised free tertiary education were essential in keeping the youth occupied. Securing opportunities for a generation defined by a 64% unemployment rate is a stated priority for the administration, with little evidence of any success in that regard in 2025.
For this Gen Z cohort, the liberation struggle holds little political capital. a Namibian political and economic analyst, Professor Johan Coetzee said he evaluate governance through policy outcomes and measurable outputs such as disposable income per capita, capital formation, value addition and increase in manufacturing, increase in ease of business, job creation, housing, and increase in human development. When these outcomes are delayed by bureaucratic bottlenecks, the persuasive power of revolutionary history erodes, leaving a legitimacy gap that symbolic representation cannot bridge.
“The result is not an outright ideological collapse but a decoupling of historical legitimacy from electoral enthusiasm, forcing liberation parties to rely more heavily on institutional inertia than ideological consent,” said Coetzee.
IT’S THE ECONOMY
Economic outcomes are increasingly becoming the lens through which democracy is judged.
As Coetzee puts it, “democracy is judged less on rights and freedoms and more on economic outcomes.”
With the concentration of presidential and executive power and discretion of ministers as embodied in legislation such as the Investment Promotion Bill, Land Bill, and the Marine Resources Act that facilitated Fishrot. It is clear that executive abuse continues to undermine democracy. Despite a new president at the helm, it is business as usual.
The economic landscape in 2025 also showed signs of institutional stability through growing investor interest in the oil and gas sector with continued discoveries of eye-watering volumes off the coast.
According to Andreas, “the growing interest by investors in the oil and gas sector is also a strong indicator of democratic legitimacy and stable institutions.”
However, this potential wealth is shadowed by systemic red flags, with the government’s petroleum company, Namcor embroiled in an array of ongoing scandals, including the arrest of various managers for corruption on a grand scale.
According to Coetzee, from the fiascos of Fishrot, Namcor and Namdia, it is clear that the regulatory model of supplier, policy maker, customer and regulator should be separated into independent players to provide checks and balances and an equalisation of power to prevent abuse.
The treatment of the media, noted by the absence of a presidential press conference for an entire year and the inability or refusal of senior government officials to address the media’s enquiries, points to a thinning tolerance for accountability. Furthermore, the failure of the government to operationalise the office of the information commissioner and a lack of teeth for the independent regulator signal a retreat from the media freedom ideals this government purports to cherish.
LOOKING AHEAD
The litmus test for leadership in 2026 will be the effectiveness of the empowered teams and the machinery of the administration. The transition of 2025 proved that Namibia is capable of maintaining peace and breaking social barriers, but it also exposed a nation at a crossroads. If political apathy becomes structurally embedded among the youth and policy implementation remains the province of insulated technocratic elites, the country risks a form of democratic decay.
In this scenario, the constitution exists on paper but holds very limited tangible meaning for the average citizen struggling with economic stagnation.
To avoid a future of authoritarian tolerance, where citizens trade rights for certainty, the government must move from rhetorical diagnosis to delivery.
Democracy in Namibia in 2025 has certainly thinned, and the challenge for the remainder of the term will be to thicken that democracy with the results of a functional, transparent, and decentralised state.
