Namibia’s incumbent President Hage Geingob has won the 2019 presidential election with 56.3% of the vote, the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) announced on Saturday.
Geingob, Namibia’s third leader since the sparsely populated and mostly arid country freed itself from the shackles of apartheid South Africa in 1990, was seeking a second and final term in the Nov. 27 election.
First elected in 2014 with 87% of the vote, Geingob garnered 56.3% and avoided a potential re-run against a member of his own party, Panduleni Itula, who was running as an independent.
Itula, a dentist-turned-politician, trailed behind with 29.4% of the vote, and the leader of the official opposition party, McHenry Venaani, was in third position with 5.3%.Geingob told cheering crowds that he was proud that the elections were free and fair.
“I am just a proud Namibian that we could have free and fair elections, no fighting, no attacking each other, free movement was allowed,” said Geingob.
In the legislative vote to choose 96 members of parliament, the ruling party lost its two-thirds majority after the ruling party secured 63 seats, down from 77 seats, while the official opposition party, Venaani’s Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) party, will hold 16 seats, improving from its 2014 total of five in the legislative chamber.
Opposition leader Venaani told Reuters that they were considering approaching the courts over “anomalies and irregularities” during the election.
