Namibia's ruling party began a two-day congress yesterday to pick a successor to veteran President Sam Nujoma, with political temperatures on the rise ahead of the historic meeting -- the first time three candidates have run for the party's top position.
Nujoma, 75, has ruled Namibia since independence in 1990 after leading the struggle against apartheid South Africa for three decades as the president of the South West Peoples' Organization (SWAPO).
He is due to step down following elections in November, heralding a new era in Namibia, a former German colony that was later ruled by Pretoria when it was called South-West Africa.
Three candidates are in contention for the position, all nominated during a special central committee meeting last month, and will be standing for election by some 600 delegates attending the meeting in the capital.
Nujoma on Monday fired foreign minister Hidipo Hamutenya -- one of the three candidates in the running to succeed him.
The shock move has fuelled speculation over the outcome of the congress.
On Thursday, a defiant Hamutenya told a press conference: "I am still a candidate and also still a member of the party's politburo and the central committee as well as a member of parliament.
"I intend to remain in this race. I have tried to run a clean campaign, one that steered clear of mudslinging and character assassination," he added.
The other contenders in the race are Hifikepunye Pohamba, the party vice president hand-picked by Nujoma to be his successor, and Nahas Angula, the country's minister for higher education, who on Wednesday said to reporters he had never had "any strong presidential ambitions before" being nominated.
Angula said he would stand for the position "to serve the Namibian people."
"I am not doing this for power or glory, but to serve the Namibian people," he said.
Land Affairs Minister Pohamba has declined to make statements or give interviews.
Nujoma last month announced he would not be seeking a fourth term in office and would hand over the reins when his term ends in March next year in what will be the first transition of power in Namibia since independence.
But the days leading up to the conference swirled with political intrigue, including Hamutenya's sacking and the congress venue being kept a secret to confuse the estimated 600 delegates in a campaign "to benefit Nujoma's candidate, Pohamba," reports said.
Local human rights organizations have also accused Nujoma's office of waging a "dirty tricks campaign," characterized by disinformation, bribery, intimidation, smear tactics, mudslinging and general demonization aimed at two of the three SWAPO presidential hopefuls, Hamutenya and Angula.
Other observers have suggested that Nujoma himself may step in to "restore the chaos within the party" and give himself a fourth term in office.
Nujoma and Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe are the only leaders in sub-Saharan Africa still in power since independence.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited