Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah

Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah (born October 29, 1952, Onamutai, South West Africa [now Namibia]) is a politician who became the president-elect of Namibia after having won the country’s November 2024 presidential election. Once sworn in, she will become the first woman to serve as Namibia’s president. She has held several government posts, including deputy prime minister and vice president. Nandi-Ndaitwah is a longtime member of SWAPO, the former liberation movement that is now Namibia’s ruling party. She had campaigned for Namibia’s independence from South Africa and spent more than a decade in exile.

Early life, involvement with SWAPO, and exile

Nandi was born to Justina Nekoto Nandi and Petrus Nandi, an Anglican church pastor; she was the 9th of their 13 children. She studied at the St. Mary’s Mission School in Odibo. Nandi grew up when Namibia, then known as South West Africa, was under South African rule with a system of apartheid in place. She joined the South West Africa People’s Organization (later referred to as SWAPO) as a teen in 1966 and later led the organization’s Youth League in the northern region Owambo. She participated in and helped lead demonstrations denouncing apartheid and supporting independence for Namibians. At the time, public floggings were used to punish anyone who opposed the apartheid regime; Nandi also campaigned against such practices. Her political activities led to her arrest and imprisonment in 1973. The following year she went into exile.

Nandi remained active with SWAPO while in exile. In 1976 she became a member of the SWAPO Central Committee and was SWAPO’s chief representative for Central Africa, based in Lusaka, Zambia, from 1978 to 1980. From 1980 to 1986 she served as SWAPO’s chief representative for eastern Africa, based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and also for the Organization of African Unity (precursor to the African Union). In 1983 she married Epaphras Denga Ndaitwah, who was a leader in the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, SWAPO’s armed wing. She and Ndaitwah have three sons.

While in exile Nandi-Ndaitwah continued her education. In 1975 she went to the Soviet Union, where she spent one year studying communist youth movements. She later went to the United Kingdom, where she earned a postgraduate diploma (1987) in public administration and management from Glasgow College of Technology (now part of Glasgow Caledonian University) in Scotland and then a diploma (1988) in international relations and a master’s degree (1989) in diplomatic studies from Keele University in England.

Political career in independent Namibia

In 1989, as the transition toward independence for Namibia progressed, Nandi-Ndaitwah returned home. Upon Namibia’s independence on March 21, 1990, SWAPO came to power, and Nandi-Ndaitwah became a member of the National Assembly. She served in every National Assembly thereafter before resigning in 2024. She has held positions in several ministries, including deputy minister of foreign affairs (1990–96), minister of women affairs and child welfare (2000–05), minister of information and broadcasting (2005–10), minister of environment and tourism (2010–12), minister of foreign affairs (2012–15), and minister of international relations and cooperation (2015–24). She was also appointed deputy prime minister in 2015, by Pres. Hage Geingob, a position she held until 2024.

Nandi-Ndaitwah has been an advocate for women’s rights. She served as director general of the Department of Women Affairs from 1996 to 2000 under Namibia’s first president, Sam Nujoma. She has continued to push for gender equality in Namibia. The Combating of Domestic Violence Act, which became law in 2003, was first shepherded through the National Assembly by Nandi-Ndaitwah. She has advocated for women’s rights on the international stage as well, participating in the UN’s third and fourth world conferences on women, held in Kenya in 1985 and China in 1995, respectively. Moreover, she took part in the UN General Assembly’s special session “Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-first Century” in 2000. In addition to her government posts and advocacy work, she has held leadership positions within SWAPO, including vice president of the party, a post to which she was elected in 2017 and reelected in 2022, and she sits on the party’s Central Committee and Politburo.

Under the terms of SWAPO’s constitution, Nandi-Ndaitwah’s reelection as vice president of the party in 2022, coupled with Geingob’s disqualification from standing for another term as Namibia’s president due to the country’s constitutional limit of two terms, secured her place as the party’s candidate in the country’s next presidential election, to be held in 2024. Though some in the party challenged her candidacy, it was confirmed by SWAPO’s Politburo and Central Committee in March 2024. Meanwhile, Geingob had died in office in February and was succeeded by Vice Pres. Nangolo Mbumba, who took over as interim president. On February 4 Mbumba appointed Nandi-Ndaitwah to serve as vice president during this period.

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The presidential and parliamentary elections held on November 27, 2024, saw more than a million Namibians cast their vote. Election day was beset with problems, including a shortage of ballots and technical malfunctions at polling stations, which led to extremely long lines and kept some Namibians from voting on November 27. As a result, voting was extended for up to three days in some areas. Nandi-Ndaitwah won the presidential contest with more than 57 percent of the vote, becoming the first woman to be elected president of Namibia. She beat her closest rival, Panduleni Itula, a former SWAPO member who was the candidate of the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) party, who won about 26 percent of the vote. In the National Assembly elections, SWAPO retained power but saw its share of elected seats decline. Opposition parties disputed the election results, citing the significant logistical challenges that occurred on the day of the election, which they alleged were intentional attempts at preventing voters from casting ballots. The IPC and another party mounted a legal challenge to the results, but it was dismissed by the Supreme Court on February 28, 2025. Nandi-Ndaitwah is set to be sworn in on March 21, 2025.