POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PROSPECTS OF NAMIBIA

The ruling SWAPO is expected to win the 2024 elections with a reduced majority. The party has seen its credibility with voters diminished due to two factors.

First is the range of corruption scandals, including the 2019 ‘Fishrot’ incident involving the fishing industry, which saw two cabinet ministers arrested.

Second is the struggling economy, which is just returning to more sustained growth post-COVID, allied to high levels of unemployment (50 per cent among the youth).

President Hage Geingob is due to stand down in 2025, having served his two terms in office. For the first time, SWAPO will field a female candidate, the incumbent foreign minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah (70 years old), in the presidential elections due in late 2024.

With the party’s dominance of the Namibian political scene on the wane, SWAPO’s electoral fortunes partly depend on the state of the opposition, which remains often fragmented along regional and ethnic lines.

With less than 18 months to go to the polls, there is little sign of opposition parties becoming more organized and united.

In the 2019 elections, Geingob came under pressure from an independent candidate - Panduleni Itula - who claimed 30 per cent of the vote.

Since then, Itula has gone on to form the Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) party, which took control of several cities and towns, including the main port of Walvis Bay, in local elections held in 2020. The IPC is expected to form the official opposition after 2024.

Significant oil discoveries off the coast in early 2022 and Namibia’s ambitious plans for developing green hydrogen have prompted some optimism regarding economic prospects.

However, the full benefits of these projects, in terms of rents to the government and job creation, will not be felt before tinue SWAPO’s pragmatic rather than ideological approach to governing - with Namibia remaining open to foreign investment. However, she is seen as less friendly to the West than Geingob.

As foreign minister, she has rejected calls for Namibia to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She is also likely to continue to develop Namibia’s relations with China - already Namibia’s main trading partner and the owner of three uranium mines.

Germany is Namibia’s most significant bilateral aid donor, but the relationship with Berlin has soured in recent years due to the failure of the two governments to negotiate an apology and reparations package for the 1904-08 genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples.

During Geingob’s time in office, the investment environment has been clouded by two pieces of planned legislation - an investment promotion bill and a black economic empowerment framework.

Both have been criticised for vesting too much discretionary power in ministers and promoting crony capitalism over genuine investment.

These prospective laws remain in draft form, and it is unclear whether Geingob will push them through before he leaves office.

Namibia’s economy is now in recovery mode following several years of recession compounded by the damage caused by the COVID pandemic. The economy grew by 3.5 per cent in 2021 and 4.6 per cent in 2022 after shrinking by just over 8 per cent in 2020.

The ratio of public debt as a proportion of GDP is nearing 70 per cent, although the rate of increase is slowing down. The debt is mainly domestic, with bilateral debts to China and Germany making up less than 3 per cent of the total.

The annual inflation rate was 5.3 per cent in June, with the Bank of Namibia predicting it will average 4.9 per cent in 2023.

After several years of good rains, the El Niño effect is expected to lead to the return of drought in late 2023 and 2024, adding to the woes in the agricultural sector already caused by climate change.

Tourism is one bright spot, with visitor levels expected to return to pre-COVID levels in 2023.

GRAHAM HOPWOOD Executive Director, Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)