Windhoek (AFP)
Namibians will vote in a general election on Wednesday with the incumbent president facing discontent over the ailing economy despite the nation being one of the most mineral-rich in Africa.
The southwest African nation is grappling with an entrenched recession that has overshadowed President Hage Geingob’s first term in office.
Geingob, whose South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) has ruled Namibia since independence from South Africa in 1990, is seeking re-election, but his popularity has waned among frustrated youth who have borne the brunt of the downturn.
Analysts say that Itula could attract votes from both the opposition and SWAPO loyalists displeased with 78-year-old Geingob.
“The Namibian people are living in dire straits,” tweeted Itula last week.
– ‘Don’t need friends’ –
Observers say the president is still likely to secure a second five-year mandate, but his score is predicted to drop from the 87 percent he garnered in 2014.
His runner-up McHenry Venaani of the opposition Popular Democratic Movement (PDM), had won less than five percent of the votes cast.
SWAPO has enjoyed a two-thirds parliamentary majority since 1994.
“We are now in the second phase of the struggle, that of economic emancipation, that of provision of basic necessities,” said Geingob addressing a more than half-empty stadium at SWAPO’s final rally in the capital Windhoek on Saturday.
His PDM party is haunted by the legacy of its affiliation with apartheid South Africa before independence, which continues to deter voters. The rest of Namibia’s opposition is ethnically divided.
Despite World Bank predictions of recovery this year, growth remained negative for the first two quarters of 2019.
With a population of 2.45 million, around 1.4 million Namibians are registered to vote.
