The 72-year-old Nandi-Ndaitwah won an election in November to become one of just a handful of African female leaders after the likes of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Joyce Banda of Malawi, and Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah was sworn in as Namibia’s first female president on Friday, reaching the highest office in her land nearly 60 years after she joined the liberation movement fighting for independence from apartheid South Africa.
The 72-year-old Nandi-Ndaitwah won an election in November to become one of just a handful of African female leaders after the likes of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Joyce Banda of Malawi, and Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania.
Sirleaf and Banda, now former leaders of their countries, and current Tanzania President Hassan all attended Nandi-Ndaitwah’s inauguration.
Nandi-Ndaitwah’s swearing-in coincided with the 35th anniversary of Namibia’s independence, but the ceremony was switched from a soccer stadium where thousands were due to attend to the official presidential office because of heavy rain.
The new president made her pledge to defend, uphold, and support the constitution in front of other visiting leaders from South Africa, Zambia, Congo, Botswana, Angola, and Kenya.
Nandi-Ndaitwah succeeds Nangolo Mbumba, who had stood in as Namibia’s president since February 2024 following the death in office of President Hage Geingob. Nandi-Ndaitwah was promoted to vice president following Geingob’s death.
Nandi-Ndaitwah is just the fifth president of Namibia, a sparsely populated nation in southwestern Africa which was a German colony until the end of World War I and then won independence from South Africa in 1990 after decades of struggle and a guerilla war against South African forces that lasted more than 20 years.
“The task facing me as the fifth president of the Republic of Namibia is to preserve the gains of our independence on all fronts and to ensure that the unfinished agenda of economic and social advancement of our people is carried forward with vigor and determination to bring about shared, balanced prosperity for all,” Nandi-Ndaitwah said.
Nandi-Ndaitwah is a veteran of the South West Africa People’s Organization, or SWAPO, which led Namibia’s fight for independence and has been its ruling party ever since.
She was the ninth of 13 children; her father was an Anglican clergyman, and she attended a mission school that she later taught in.
She joined SWAPO as a teenager in the 1960s and spent time in exile in Zambia, Tanzania, the former Soviet Union, and the UK in the 1970s and 1980s.
She had been a lawmaker in Namibia since 1990 and was the foreign minister before being appointed vice president.
She said she would insist on good governance and high ethical standards in public institutions and promote closer regional cooperation.
She pledged to continue calling for the rights of Palestinians and the people of Western Sahara to self-determination and demanded the lifting of sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
She also said Namibia would continue contributing to efforts to fight climate change, a persistent threat for an arid country of just three million people that regularly experiences droughts.
Nandi-Ndaitwah’s husband is a retired general who once commanded Namibia’s armed forces and was formally given the title “first gentleman.”
Nandi-Ndaitwah’s inauguration came a day after Namibia’s Parliament elected its first female speaker.
Popularly known by her initials NNN, Ms. Nandi-Ndaitwah secured 58% of the vote in the chaotic November elections, which were extended several times after logistical failures led to major delays. The youthful opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) mounted a strong challenge but took only 25.5 percent of the vote, underscoring continued loyalty to SWAPO even as the popularity of other southern African liberation parties has waned.
A key issue at the polls was massive unemployment among the young population, with 44% of 18- to 34-year-olds without work in 2023 in a country of just three million people. On the eve of her inauguration, NNN said tackling unemployment was a priority.
“In the next five years we must produce at least 500,000 jobs,” she told South Africa’s national broadcaster SABC, adding it would require investment of 85 billion Namibian dollars ($4.67 billion, 4.3 billion euros).
Key sectors for job creation are agriculture, fishing and the creative and sports industries, she said. She appealed for unity after political divisions surfaced during the elections, which the IPC sought to annul in a failed court action.
“We can make our politics during the campaign and so on but once it’s over, we must build Namibia together,” she said. On her election as Namibia’s first woman president, she told SABC: “Of course it’s a good thing that we are breaking the ceiling, we are breaking the walls.”
NNN, a conservative daughter of an Anglican pastor, has taken a strict stance against abortion, which is banned in Namibia except in exceptional circumstances. Gay marriage is also illegal. A member of SWAPO since her early teens, she was exiled in Moscow during the liberation struggle. As foreign minister between 2012 and 2024, she praised her country’s “good historical relations” with North Korea.
Namibia is the world’s third or fourth biggest natural uranium producer, depending on the year, and supplies the radioactive metal to countries producing nuclear power, including France.
