HISTORY was made over the weekend with Namibia for the first time inaugurated a woman president, who appointed a woman as vice president shortly after a woman became Speaker of the National Assembly.
President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s Cabinet is also dominated by women.
Hours after announcing her Cabinet, complaints were already flying in from the party’s stronghold questioning how people who were outside of the party structures made it to Cabinet.
As the unease grew, some party stalwarts predicted a potential politburo revolt, as her choice of Cabinet allegedly implies that as party president she has no faith in her comrades to deliver on the party’s process of radical change. As it stands, the politburo is not significantly represented in government.
Her first act as the commander in chief is potentially maintaining Swapo’s inner turmoil. Whilst she seems hellbent on extinguishing the internal flames, which have threatened to incinerate the liberation movement, Madam President’s Cabinet choices appears to have divided opinion within the party; a development she was hoping to avoid.
Her backers maintain that Nandi-Ndaitwah is on a mission to become the glue that will mend the party, putting an end to a 20 year ‘civil war’. A war that almost ended her political career.
Her battle for political survival started in 2004, when she and her current pick for director general of the National Planning Commission, Kaire Mbuende backed Hidipo Hamutenya at that year’s extraordinary congress to elect the party leader to replace then president Sam Nujoma as the Swapo presidential candidate in that year’s presidential election.
Hifikepunye Pohamba emerged victorious ahead of Hamutenya and Nahas Angula. However, it was Hamutenya’s supporters who ended up being weeded out of the party structures, while facing stigma.
Her political career was skating on thin ice, until the 2017 Swapo elective congress where she emerged as party’s vice president. She was backed by both former President Pohamba and Hage Geingob.
But her fortunes started looking up after the 2012 elective congress when Pohamba’s candidate Geingob emerged victorious with Pohamba’s backing.
The condition appears to have included Nandi-Ndaitwah as Geingob’s successor. However, despite her being declared Geingob’s heir apparent, her supporters still complained that Geingbo gave her the cold shoulder and was backing other candidates. This discontent was especially expressed during the run up to the 2022 elective congress, which saw her emerge victorious.
However, she has been talking reconciliation and unity. Her push to bring back people like Dimbulukeni Nauyoma, Henny Seibeb into the Swapo fold, including the appointment of Elijah Ngurare as Prime Minister, have been seen as her move to ensure Swapo moves past the crippling factional battles which characterised the party for over two decades.
Avoiding further crippling factional battles is believed to be one of the president’s most pressing priorities.
This is highlighted by the fact that Swapo’s current threat to losing the 2029 national elections are the Landless People’s Movement (LPM), Affirmative Repositioning (AR) and the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC). IPC came from not being represented in the National Assembly to 20 seats, AR also a new kid on the block has six seats and the LPM this time around got five seats. All three parties are spin offs from Swapo as a result of their factional battles. Leaders of the three parties, especially IPC and AR left Swapo because of the alleged victimisation they suffered after differing with the powers that be in Swapo. IPC and AR were in particular formed because Swapo dismissed its leaders after being deemed troublesome and ‘incompatible with Swapo’s ideals’.
THE CABINET
The commander-in-chief’s reorganisation of government included a few positives. She downsized the executive, shrinking the Cabinet from 26 to 20 and significantly reducing the number of ministries from 21 to 14. She has also heard the complaints about Cabinet being an ‘old age home’. Madam President appointed a predominantly youthful Cabinet, with only seven members being over the age of 60, while 10 are under the age of 60 and of those six are younger than 50 years.
The average member of the new cabinet has held a senior and strategic position in the past, with the majority being academically highly qualified. And some are well respected in their respective fields.
Nandi-Ndaitwah, appointed her administration based on consideration of the skills and little with the pity of having to keep party stalwarts in jobs or pitty appointments. Her appointments appear geared towards service delivery and cementing her hold on Cabinet.
Although many in the party and country remain skeptical.
In her inaugural speech she undertook to prioritise service delivery while eliminating corruption, which she linked to an act of treason.
She highlighted that corruption should be treated like treason. A bold statement.
However, the early critics have a problem with her choice of finance minister, Erica Shafudah, who served as permanent secretary of the ministry of finance and chairperson of the tender board. During Shafudah’s tenure as chairperson of the tender board, newspaper headlines of alleged corruption in the manner in which tenders were being awarded was a daily occurrence. Some of the tender awards were contested in court, while at the same time, politically connected businesspeople were the main beneficiaries of the alleged corruption. Some of these businesspeople were also known as Swapo benefactors.
But Shafudah’s proponents point out that she is a skilled economist who was the chief administrator of the finance ministry during the era when the government achieved its surplus and was running the government almost debt free. Her supporters also claim that she was opposed to the hefty borrowing, on failed legacy projects like Tipeeg and mass housing, between 2010 and 2015.
Shafudah’s appointment has now led to some of Nandi-Ndaitwah’s detractors making claims that the president bowed to pressure from Swapo’s donors, whose intentions are believed to be aimed at looting.
The President’s choice of health minister also came under the spotlight. Esperance Luvindao’s appointment was criticised on social media, questions about her experience and leadership acumen to transform the ailing healthcare sector.
At government level the president of both the state and the ruling Swapo party, has demonstrated decisive leadership for appointing a team deemed as conventional in the way Swapo has been doing things.
Those in the know told The Issue that the president’s move to shrink government was brought about by a need to balance between the executive and the legislature. She allegedly needed the party to have a strong presence in the National Assembly. She opted to ensure that all of her eight non-voting appointees to the National Assembly form part of the executive. While only 12 of the names on the Swapo’s National Assembly party list have been appointed into executive positions.
This was to ensure that considering Swapo’s reduced majority in the NA, they ensure the party’s MPs dominate the parliamentary committees. This move would have been undermined should she have appointed a large executive, because ministers and deputies do not qualify to serve on parliamentary committees. With an already reduced majority in the National Assembly, Swapo cannot afford for committees to be controlled by the opposition.
The Parliamentary Standing Committees serve as the oversight bodies keeping the executive accountable to parliament.
COMPLEX BALANCING ACT
Nandi-Ndaitwah’s choice of appointees cannot be divorced from the party she recently became president of and its evershifting internal power dynamics.
Some party leaders are happy with her choices, going with the fact that she ran with a party manifesto that promised radical change.
“Change is expensive and I will say let’s go for capacity,” said a party leader, who supports the composition of the new government. Those in Nandi-Ndaitwah’s corner also point out that the party’s 2024 electoral college, dubbed ‘the pot’, did not give her many options when it comes to candidates with the right capacity to run with her promise to bring about radical change.
