JOHANNESBURG: Namibia’s first woman president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah on Thursday said her victory in a disputed vote last week had broken a “glass ceiling”.

The vice-president secured just past 57 per cent of the vote, well ahead of the candidate for the main opposition Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) on 25.5pc, the election authority announced on Tuesday.

Yet the IPC has said it did not recognise the vote, pointing to a “multitude of irregularities”.

“As a woman, I’m the first to admit that my election to the highest office in the land is definitely one that is breaking the glass ceiling for a Namibian woman,” she told reporters at her first briefing since her victory’s announcement.

Nandi-Ndaitwah, 72, became the first woman to rule the mineral-rich nation, governed by her South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) party since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.

In her address, Namibia’s new leader praised Liberia’s former head of state Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who in 2006 became the first woman president on the African continent, for being “the one who really led the way”.

“And for me, it’s just to reaffirm that equal responsibility of women and men in society is a reality,” Nandi-Ndaitwah said.

Nandi-Ndaitwah, a SWAPO stalwart known by her initials NNN, will be among Africa’s few women leaders.

The conservative daughter of an Anglican pastor, she assumed the role of vice president in February this year.

She has taken a strict stance on abortion, which is banned in the country except in exceptional circumstances, and has not championed women’s rights.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2024