Editorial

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s commissioning of the national task forces on economic recovery, health, and housing & land marks one of the clearest early signals of the 8th Administration’s intention to break from business-as-usual governance. The speech delivered was measured, sober, and deliberately forward-looking. It struck the necessary chords of unity, urgency, and institutional alignment. Yet, as with any initiative built on lofty ambition, the real test lies not in the unveiling but in the doing. The President’s framing of Namibia’s current challenges – rising living costs, constrained job creation, underperforming service delivery, a strained health system, and the persistent burdens…

Windhoekers are tired, tired of the pretence, tired of the empty rituals, tired of the political musical chairs that masquerade as leadership in the capital city of Namibia. Every year, like clockwork, city council stages its tired spectacle: elect a new mayor, parade them in front of cameras, hand them a chain with great ceremonial pomp, and then immediately strip them of any meaningful authority. Annual election, zero executive powers. A new face, the same impotence. The same bureaucracy, untouched and unbothered. It is governance by Groundhog Day, a classic definition of doing the same thing again and again while…

The dust hasn’t quite settled on the 2025 Regional Councils and Local Authorities elections, but the political mood across Namibia already feels unmistakably familiar. Swapo, after its stumble in 2020, has found its footing again. The opposition, meanwhile, looks scattered and winded. Add to this the drag of a low-turnout election, the kind that almost always tilts toward incumbents, and the picture that emerges is one of a democracy revealing not just its choices but also its frustrations. What we are witnessing is a shift in how Namibians are engaging with politics: less animated by party colours, more shaped by…

Allexer Namundjembo Youth participation in the regional and local authority elections remained low, with many young voters not visible in the queues at the polls on Wednesday.  This is despite more than 643 000 youth registered to vote, making up about 42% of the 1.49 million voters on the final voters register released by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN). The regional and local authority elections took place on 26 November 2025.  Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Youth leader Duminga Ndala says the low youth turnout in yesterday’s Regional and Local Authority elections signals a serious disconnect between young people and…

The Windhoek Observer has watched Namibian elections for decades. We have seen the rise and fall of political giants, the birth of new movements, and the ever-shifting theatre of campaign rhetoric. But every so often, something happens that forces us to pause, not because it is surprising, but precisely because it is not. It is depressingly familiar. It is predictable. And it is dangerous. This week, reports emerged from Keetmanshoop that Landless People’s Movement leader Bernadus Swartbooi and independent candidate Vernon Coleman became entangled in a confrontation that escalated into physical violence. What began, as these things often do, with…

As Namibia approaches the regional and local authority elections on 26 November, the nation finds itself at a critical democratic crossroads. These elections, often overshadowed by the glamour and political theatre of general elections, carry an undeniable weight. They are, in many ways, the most intimate reflection of the people’s voice. This is where political rhetoric meets the hard reality of service delivery; where promises collide with potholes, housing backlogs, sanitation failures, and bread-and-butter governance. What makes this year’s elections particularly consequential is the timing. We are only nine months into the Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah administration. For a presidency still defining…

South Africa has, for decades, carried burdens on behalf of this continent, some loudly acknowledged, many quietly ignored. From peacekeeping in Lesotho and the DRC, to economic stabilisation efforts across SADC, to being the single most consistent African voice in global forums where our collective interests are too often dismissed, diluted, or deliberately sidelined, South Africa has been the indispensable anchor of our region. And yet, when that anchor is shaken, Africa goes silent. Over the past months, President Cyril Ramaphosa has endured a series of undiplomatic and thinly veiled confrontations from the United States, first the ambush at the…

 Namibia has entered the familiar, feverish stretch of the political calendar known as the “silly season”, when passions run high, rhetoric grows sharp, and politicians of all stripes test the limits of what they can say to energise their supporters. Elections are, by their very nature, noisy affairs. Positions clash, words fly, and agendas jostle for prominence. In that sense, your recent remarks about wishing for an “actual shooting war” to start in Namibia, and your call for foreign intervention from U.S. president Donald Trump, may be chalked up by some as campaign theatrics. But even in the silly season,…