2019 Namibian general election

2019 Namibian general election

←  2014 27 November 2019 (2019-11-27) 2024  →
Registered	1,358,468
Presidential election
Turnout	60.82%
IND PDM Nominee Hage Geingob Panduleni Itula McHenry Venaani Party SWAPO Independent PDM Popular vote 464,703 242,657 43,959 Percentage 56.25% 29.37% 5.32%
President before election Hage Geingob SWAPO Elected President Hage Geingob SWAPO
Parliamentary election
96 of the 104 seats in the National Assembly 53 seats needed for a majority
Party Leader % Seats +/– SWAPO Hage Geingob 65.45 63 −14 PDM McHenry Venaani 16.65 16 +11 LPM Bernadus Swartbooi 4.75 4 New NUDO Esther Muinjangue 1.96 2 0 APP Ignatius Shixwameni 1.79 2 0 UDF Apius Auchab 1.79 2 0 RP Henk Mudge 1.77 2 +1 NEFF Epafras Mukwiilongo 1.66 2 +2 RDP Mike Kavekotora 1.09 1 −2 CDV Faustus Thomas 0.71 1 +1 SWANU Tangeni Iiyambo 0.65 1 0 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below.
Maps
Presidential election results by region Presidential election results by constituency Parliamentary election results by region

General elections were held in Namibia on 27 November 2019. ^[1] Ballots were cast using electronic voting. ^[2] A total of eleven candidates ran for the presidency and fifteen political parties contested the National Assembly elections.

Hage Geingob of SWAPO was re-elected to the presidency, although his vote share was reduced from 87% in 2014 to 56%, their lowest vote share for a presidential election in the party's history. ^[3] SWAPO also retained their majority in the National Assembly, but lost their two-thirds supermajority. ^[4] SWAPO had held a two-thirds majority since the 1994 elections. ^[5]

Electoral system

The President of Namibia is elected using the two-round system; if no candidate receives more than 50% in the first round of voting, a run-off will be held. No previous presidential votes in Namibia have gone to a second round. ^[6]

The 104 members of the National Assembly consist of 96 elected members and eight (non-voting) members appointed by the President. ^[7] The 96 elected members are elected by closed list proportional representation from 14 multi-member constituencies based on the regions. Seats are allocated using the largest remainder method. ^[8]

Political parties

SWAPO

SWAPO was viewed as the clear favorite going into the 2019 election, although the rise of new parties, such as the Landless People's Movement, was predicted to cause a split in the vote. ^[9] In 2014, the ruling SWAPO Party announced a gender equality system where half of SWAPO's seats in parliament would be held by women. The party also embraced what it called a "zebra system", whereby if a minister was a woman, the deputy minister would be a man, and vice versa. Due to there being more male SWAPO MPs than female MPs, SWAPO put forward plans to expand parliament to remove the risk of male MPs losing their seats as a result of this gender equality policy. ^[10] This change, raising the number of seats from 78 to 104, was enacted in 2014, although it was officially framed as allowing for wider representation of the population. ^[11]

Opposition

Opposition parties had the objective of removing SWAPO's two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. The Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF) and the Republican Party (RP), both without a realistic chance in the previous elections, withdrew their presidential candidates in early November and instead endorsed the independent candidate Panduleni Itula. ^[12] The United Democratic Front (UDF) in turn withdrew their candidate to back McHenry Venaani, presidential candidate of the Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) and leader of the official opposition. In August 2019, the two parties signed a coalition agreement for the coming legislative period, allocating parliamentary seats 6, 13 and 18 to the UPM, and the others to PDM, in an entity to be known as the PDM-UPM coalition. ^[13] The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) formed a coalition with the Christian Democratic Voice (CDV), both parties supported Mike Kavekotora of the RDP. ^[14]

Parties that contested the legislative election

The following parties fielded candidates to contest the legislative election: ^{[15] [16] [17] [18]}

Party			Leader	Founded	2014 result
					Votes (%)	Seats
	SWAPO	South West Africa People's Organisation	Hage Geingob	1960	80.01%	77 / 104
	PDM	Popular Democratic Movement	McHenry Venaani	1977	4.80%	5 / 104
	RDP	Rally for Democracy and Progress	Mike Kavekotora	2007	3.51%	3 / 104
	APP	All People's Party	Ignatius Shixwameni	2007	2.29%	2 / 104
	UDF	United Democratic Front	Apius Auchab	1989	2.12%	2 / 104
	NUDO	National Unity Democratic Organisation	Esther Muinjangue	1964	2.01%	2 / 104
	WRP	Workers Revolutionary Party	Hewat Beukes	1984	1.49%	2 / 104
	SWANU	South West African National Union	Tangeni Iiyambo	1959	0.71%	1 / 104
	RP	Republican Party	Henk Mudge	1977	0.68%	1 / 104
	COD	Congress of Democrats	Ben Ulenga	1999	0.38%	0 / 104
	NEFF	Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters	Epafras Mukwiilongo	2014	0.36%	0 / 104
	CDV	Christian Democratic Voice	Faustus Thomas	2014	0.29%	0 / 104
	NDP	National Democratic Party	—	2003	0.16%	0 / 104
	NPF	National Patriotic Front	Uapiruka Papama	1989	—	—
	LPM	Landless People's Movement	Bernadus Swartbooi	2016	—	—

Campaign

Ten candidates contested the presidential elections, with Hage Geingob of SWAPO widely expected to win a second term as president. ^{[19] [20]} For the first time, an independent candidate, Panduleni Itula, ran for president. Esther Muinjangue of the National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO) was the first female presidential candidate in Namibia. ^[21]

Results

President

Hage Geingob won the presidential election and received a second term as president. His percentage of votes gained, however, dropped significantly from 87% in 2014 to 56% in 2019. While rural areas predominantly supported Geingob, many urban centres voted for the independent candidate, Panduleni Itula, who received 29% of the overall votes. No other candidate achieved a two-digit result. ^[22]

Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Hage Geingob	SWAPO	464,703	56.25
	Panduleni Itula	Independent	242,657	29.37
	McHenry Venaani	Popular Democratic Movement	43,959	5.32
	Bernadus Swartbooi	Landless People's Movement	22,542	2.73
	Apius Auchab	United Democratic Front	22,115	2.68
	Esther Muinjangue	National Unity Democratic Organisation	12,039	1.46
	Tangeni Iiyambo	SWANU	5,959	0.72
	Henk Mudge	Republican Party	4,379	0.53
	Mike Kavekotora	Rally for Democracy and Progress	3,515	0.43
	Ignatius Shixwameni	All People's Party	3,304	0.40
	Epafras Mukwiilongo	Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters	1,026	0.12
Total			826,198	100.00
Valid votes			826,198	100.00
Invalid/blank votes			0	0.00
Total votes			826,198	100.00
Registered voters/turnout			1,358,468	60.82
Source: ECN

National Assembly

SWAPO won a majority of seats in the National Assembly, as it had in years prior, but narrowly missed the threshold for a two-thirds majority, which it had held since 1994. Consequently, opposition parties also gained seats, most prominently the PDM, which obtained 16 seats in the National Assembly. ^[22] The PDM's 16.60% vote share is its best electoral performance since the 1994 election.

Party		Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	SWAPO	536,861	65.45	63	–14
	Popular Democratic Movement	136,576	16.65	16	+11
	Landless People's Movement	38,956	4.75	4	New
	National Unity Democratic Organisation	16,066	1.96	2	0
	All People's Party	14,664	1.79	2	0
	United Democratic Front	14,644	1.79	2	0
	Republican Party	14,546	1.77	2	+1
	Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters	13,580	1.66	2	+2
	Rally for Democracy and Progress	8,953	1.09	1	–2
	Christian Democratic Voice	5,841	0.71	1	+1
	SWANU	5,330	0.65	1	0
	Congress of Democrats	4,654	0.57	0	0
	National Democratic Party	4,559	0.56	0	0
	Workers Revolutionary Party	3,212	0.39	0	–2
	National Patriotic Front	1,785	0.22	0	New
Appointed members				8	0
Total		820,227	100.00	104	0
Valid votes		820,227	100.00
Invalid/blank votes		0	0.00
Total votes		820,227	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		1,358,468	60.38
Source: ECN

Legal challenge

Runner-up Itula challenged the outcome of the elections in court, based on the Electoral Act of 2014 that allows electronic voting machines (EVMs) only in combination with a Verifiable Paper Trail (VPPT). For the Namibian elections in 2014, 2015 and now 2019, EVMs without a paper trail were used after Charles Namoloh, the responsible minister at the time, enacted the law without the paper trail provision. The Supreme Court of Namibia ruled in February 2020 that this enactment was unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers. The court, however, declined to set aside the elections carried out using such failed process, as there were no indications the devices were tampered with. ^[23] This has attracted some controversy. ^[24]

References

1. "2019 Presidential & National Assembly Election Calendar". Electoral Commission of Namibia. Archived from the original on 18 June 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
2. Iikela, Sakeus (23 September 2020). "ECN undecided on discarded EVMs". The Namibian . p. 1.
3. Melber, Henning (2020). "Namibia's parliamentary and presidential elections: the honeymoon is over". The Round Table. 109 (1): 13–22. doi: 10.1080/00358533.2020.1717090 . hdl: 2263/73508 . ISSN   0035-8533.
4. Swapo's two-thirds majority broken The Namibian, 1 December 2019
5. Melber, Henning (2023). "Explorations into middle class urbanites, social movements and political dynamics: impressions from Namibia's capital, Windhoek". Journal of Contemporary African Studies. 41 (1): 94–105. doi: 10.1080/02589001.2022.2081671 . hdl: 2263/90676 . ISSN   0258-9001.
6. "Namibia's Ruling Party Faces Unexpectedly Challenging Vote". The New York Times . Associated Press. 24 November 2019.
7. The Three Branches of Government Hanns Seidel Foundation
8. Electoral system IPU
9. Expect more promises in 2019: Kamwanyah Archived 2019-03-27 at the Wayback Machine Lela, 23 January 2019
10. Namibia's 'zebra' politics could make it stand out from the global herd The Guardian, 8 July 2014
11. Iikela, Sakeus (24 August 2017). "Where is the opposition ... when Swapo is fighting itself?". The Namibian . pp. 6–7.
12. Nembwaya, Hileni (7 November 2019). "NEFF and RP throw weight behind Itula". The Namibian . p. 1.
13. Klukowski, Steven (24 October 2019). "PDM-UPM coalition to challenge Swapo". New Era .
14. "RDP, Christian Democratic Voice form coalition". The Namibian . Namibia Press Agency. 6 September 2019. p. 3.
15. Andreas, Rakkel, ed. (October 2019). "Presidential and National Assembly Election 2019" (PDF). Spot the Difference:Namibia's Political Parties Compared. Namibia Media Holdings. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
16. "Election for Namibian National Assembly". Election Guide. Archived from the original on 26 December 2022. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
17. "RDP, Christian Democratic Voice form coalition". The Namibian. 6 September 2019. Archived from the original on 27 December 2022. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
18. "About RPD". www.rpd.org. Archived from the original on 27 April 2009. Retrieved 27 December 2022.
19. Melber, Henning (26 November 2019). "Namibian elections: The sands are shifting – slowly". Mail & Guardian .
20. "After the victory, comes the battle". Windhoek Observer . 22 October 2019. Archived from the original on 27 November 2019. Retrieved 26 November 2019.
21. Ngwawi, Joseph (21 November 2019). "Letters to the Editor: All set for Namibian elections". The Chronicle .
22. Iikela, Sakeus (2 December 2019). "Reduced victory ... Swapo, Geingob drop votes". The Namibian . p. 1.
23. Menges, Werner (6 February 2020). "Election survives EVM challenge". The Namibian . p. 1.
24. Ndeunyema, Ndjodi. "Vote, But You Cannot Verify: The Namibian Supreme Court's Presidential Election Decision". Oxford Human Rights Hub. University of Oxford.