Namibia’s electoral commission has officially declared President Hage Geingob as the winner of the Nov. 27 election. About 1.3 million voters were registered for last week’s election and the total turnout was 60%, reported Reuters.
As per the results, Geingob’s South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) received more than 56 percent of the votes for the national assembly, significantly less than during the last elections when the party won 80 percent of the vote. The SWAPO has been in power since independence in 1990.
Geingob’s has avoided a potential re-run against a member of his own party, Panduleni Itula, who was running as an independent. Itula came second with 29.4% of the vote, and the leader of the official opposition party, McHenry Venaani, came in the third position with 5.3% of the vote.
In the legislative vote, the ruling party secured 63 seats, down from 77 seats, while the official opposition party, Venaani’s Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) party, got 16 seats, improving from its 2014 total of five in the legislative chamber.
“Democracy is the real winner,” said Geingob after the declaration of results.
He said he was proud 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,” Geingob said.
The sharp decrease in vote numbers for Geingob can be attributed to public frustration over corruption scandals and unemployment during his government.
In an interview with Reuters, opposition leader Venaani said that his party was considering approaching the courts over anomalies and irregularities during the election. The ECN had previously said the vote-county would take 48 hours, but it announced the winner after 72 hours, raising concerns over the potential for vote rigging. Some Namibians also expressed frustration over the slow pace of vote-counting.
