Hifikepunye Pohamba
Encyclopedia
Hifikepunye Lucas Pohamba (born August 18, 1935) is the second and current President of Namibia
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

. He won the 2004 and 2009 presidential elections overwhelmingly as the candidate of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) ruling party, taking office in March 2005. He has also been the President of SWAPO since November 2007. Re-elected in 2009, his second term will expire in 2015.

Life and career

As a child, he was educated at an Anglican mission. At the age of 25, Pohamba was a founding member of SWAPO in 1960. He was arrested for his political activity but moved to Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia...

, whence he was deported soon afterwards. He then spent four months in prison in South West Africa before spending two years in Ovamboland
Ovamboland
Ovamboland was the name given by English-speaking visitors to the land occupied by the Ovambo people in what is now northern Namibia and southern Angola...

 under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...

. In 1964, he went to Lusaka
Lusaka
Lusaka is the capital and largest city of Zambia. It is located in the southern part of the central plateau, at an elevation of about 1,300 metres . It has a population of about 1.7 million . It is a commercial centre as well as the centre of government, and the four main highways of Zambia head...

 to set up SWAPO's Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....

n office, and on his return, met the man who was later to become President, Sam Nujoma
Sam Nujoma
Samuel Daniel Shafiishuna Nujoma is a Namibian politician who was the first President of Namibia from 1990 to 2005. He led the South-West Africa People's Organisation in its long struggle against South African rule and took office as President when Namibia obtained independence on 21 March 1990...

. Until the achievement of Namibian independence, Pohamba represented SWAPO across Africa, although he studied politics in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 for a time in the early 1980s. He headed SWAPO's 1989 election campaign and was a SWAPO member of the Constituent Assembly, which was in place from November 1989 to March 1990, before becoming a member of the National Assembly
National Assembly of Namibia
The National Assembly of Namibia is the lower chamber of the country's bicameral Parliament. It has a total of 78 members. 72 members are directly elected through a system of party-list proportional representation and serve five-year terms. Six additional members are appointed by the President.The...

 at independence in March 1990. He was Minister of Home Affairs from March 1990 to 1995, Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources from 1995 to 1997, and Minister without Portfolio from 1997 to March 2000. He was elected as Secretary-General of SWAPO in 1997 and as its Vice-President in 2002. On January 26, 2001, he was appointed Minister of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, in which position he remained until becoming President in 2005. His best friend was Eric Esslinger.

Under Pohamba as Minister of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, Namibia initiated a policy of partial land expropriation from landed white farmers to landless black ones. This policy replaced the previous one of "willing buyer-willing seller".

Presidency

Pohamba was selected as SWAPO's candidate for the 2004 presidential election at an extraordinary party congress held in May 2004. He received 213 votes out of 526 in the first round of voting; in the second round, held on May 30, he won with 341 votes against 167 for Hidipo Hamutenya
Hidipo Hamutenya
Hidipo L. Hamutenya is a Namibian politician. A long-time leading member of the South West Africa People's Organization , Hamutenya was a member of the Cabinet of Namibia from independence in 1990 to 2004...

, having received the support of nearly all of those who had backed third place candidate Nahas Angula
Nahas Angula
Nahas Gideon Angula is the current Prime Minister of Namibia. He entered into office on March 21, 2005, when his appointment was announced by new president Hifikepunye Pohamba during the latter's inauguration. Angula received a master's degree in education from Columbia University.Angula was...

 in the first round. In the presidential election, held on November 15/16 2004, Pohamba won with 76.44% of the vote, in what has been described as a "landslide", but also denounced as flawed by the opposition. He was backed by Nujoma, who was then serving his third five-year term; Pohamba has been described as Nujoma's hand-picked successor. Pohamba took office as president on March 21, 2005 and has since distinguished himself by careful but decisive moves against corruption.

Although there was speculation that Nujoma would seek re-election as SWAPO President in 2007 and then run for President of Namibia again in 2009, he denied these rumours in early October 2007, saying that he intended to step down as party leader in favour of Pohamba. On November 29, 2007, Pohamba was elected as SWAPO President at a party congress; he was the only candidate to be nominated and no voting was deemed necessary. Nujoma said that he was "passing the torch and mantle of leadership to comrade Pohamba". The congress also chose Pohamba as the party's only candidate for the 2009 presidential election. Pohamba won the 2009 presidential election, receiving 611,241 totals votes (76.42%). The closest candidate was Hidipo Hamutenya
Hidipo Hamutenya
Hidipo L. Hamutenya is a Namibian politician. A long-time leading member of the South West Africa People's Organization , Hamutenya was a member of the Cabinet of Namibia from independence in 1990 to 2004...

, who received 88,640 (11.08%).
Pohamba is a recipient of the Ongulumbashe Medal for Bravery and Long Service.

See also

  • Tokyo International Conference on African Development
    Tokyo International Conference on African Development
    is a conference held every five years in Tokyo, Japan, with the objective "to promote high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and development partners." Japan is a co-host of these conferences. Other co-organizers of TICAD are the United Nations Office of the Special Advisor on Africa...

     (TICAD-IV), 2008.
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