Namibia’s president dies at 82
NAMIBIA’S President, Hage Geingob has died at the age of 82 while receiving medical treatment at a hospital in the capital, Windhoek.
A veteran of the country’s independence struggle, Geingob had been diagnosed with cancer and revealed the details to the public last month.
He died yesterday with his wife and children by his side, Vice- President Nangolo Mbumba announced.
Namibia “has lost a distinguished servant of the people,” he said.
According to the constitution, Mbumba will now act as president as there is less than a year left of Geingob’s second term in office. Presidential and parliamentary elections had already been scheduled for November.
The exact cause of the president’s death was not given but last month he underwent “a two- day novel treatment for cancerous cells in America before flying back home on January 31, 2024, his office had said. On Namibian radio, people have been paying tribute to someone they described as a visionary as well as a jovial man, who was able to share a joke.
Leaders from around the world have been sending condolence messages with many talking about Geingob’s efforts to ensure his country’s independence. Among them has been Cyril Ramaphosa, President of neighbouring South Africa, who described him as “a towering veteran of Namibia’s liberation from colonialism and apartheid”
Geinbob, a tall man with a deep, gravelly voice and a commanding presence was a long- serving member of the Swapo party. It led the movement against apartheid South Africa, which had effectively annexed the country, then known as South West Africa, and introduced its system of legalised racism that excluded black people from political and economic power.
He lived in exile for 27 years, spending time in Botswana, America and Britain, where he bagged a PHD in politics. He came back to Namibia in 1989, a year before the country gained independence.
Geingob became president in 2015 and was in his second and final term in office. He had already been the country’s longest- serving Prime Minister in the post for 12 years from 1990 and then again for a shorter stint in 2012. But going by results at the ballot box, his popularity had declined.
In the 2014 election, he won a huge majority, taking 87 per cent of the vote. But five years later that had fallen to 56 per cent.
Geingob’s first term coincided with a stagnant economy and high levels of unemployment and poverty, according to the World Bank.
His party also faced a number of corruption scandals during his time in office. This included what became known as fish rot, where ministers and top officials were accused of taking bribes in exchange for the awarding of lucrative fishing quotas.
By 2021, three- quarters of the population thought that the country was going in the wrong direction, a three- fold increase since 2014, according to independent polling organisation Afrobarometer.
Three decades after independence, the heroic narrative of Swapo having liberated the country was losing its appeal among a generation born after the event, long- time observer of Namibian politics Henning Melber wrote in 2021.