The ‘Netumbo-listic’ Way of Governing and the Namibian Democracy

As Anthony Liccione once said, “A fool is made more of a fool when their mouth is more open than their mind.”

The recent reaction to the ministerial and deputy minister appointments is what I call a ‘mouth-brain’ reaction, rather than politically correct or sensible thoughts from the critics' corner of social media.

In my view, her appointments, from the start, have been and remain politically strategic and democratically moving in the right direction.

Many, of course, would disagree, but let’s comprehensively break them down.

Firstly, her appointments are politically correct to protect Swapo’s narrow voting majority and maintain a functioning parliamentary majority that will speak to and side with Swapo’s political agenda.

As much as I disagree with partisan thinking, one has to look at the political reality. The numbers alone justify the strategic calculation.

In the November 2024 general elections, Swapo was reduced to just 51 of the 96 elected seats in the National Assembly, a bare majority of three, the party’s weakest showing since independence in 1990, down from 63 seats in 2019.

With such a fragile parliamentary foothold, any ministerial appointment that drains a loyalist MP from the voting floor is not a luxury President Nandi-Ndaitwah can afford.

In this context, appointing ministers who do not hold voting seats in the National Assembly, or who come from outside its elected ranks, is not a political weakness; it is a deliberate act of parliamentary preservation.

A party that loses its legislative majority loses its governing mandate. Every vote in that chamber is existential.

Democratic principle

Secondly, I have always argued that having ministers who at the same time are voting members of the parliament is an ill for democracy. The democratic principle of separation of powers is eroded when an executive minister also commands a legislative vote.

In comparative constitutional theory, the tension between executive participation in the legislature and genuine parliamentary oversight has long been identified as a structural fault line.

Countries like the Netherlands, Slovakia and Sweden have adopted what scholars term ‘dualism,’ under which members of parliament must resign their legislative seats upon appointment as ministers to preserve the independence of the two branches.

Closer to home, Namibia’s governing system inherited elements of the Westminster tradition, in which, as Britannica notes, “the British cabinet may be described as the leading committee of Parliament.” The consequence, as political scholars have warned, is that the institutional boundary between the executive and legislature is “obliterated,” with the executive regaining ascendancy over the body meant to hold it to account. However, every minister in the British parliament has a constituency to account to.

It is, therefore, a democratic omen, a good one, that parliament members without voting powers are the first ministerial choice for our President. And it solidifies a minister's role as a state secretary or advocate rather than an unqualified politician.

This brings me to my third point. I have long been an advocate for members of parliament in the National Assembly and the National Council to be directly elected from their constituencies.

The National Council already operates on this principle: regional councillors are elected through the first-past-the-post system from individual constituencies, with voters casting ballots for individual candidates rather than party lists.

Direct election creates a direct line of accountability between a representative and the people who put them there. The candidate’s name, not merely their party, carries weight on the ballot paper. Regional council elections have demonstrated this principle.

In the November 2025 regional and local authority elections, about five constituencies were won by independent candidates. That is an outcome only possible in a system where an individual candidate's character can triumph over party machinery. These outcomes remind us that when voters choose people rather than lists, democratic accountability is sharpened.

Moving on, the President’s decision to appoint her deputy ministers from the National Council speaks directly to this deep-held belief.

Accountable by structures

Under Article 32 of the Namibian Constitution, the President is empowered to appoint ministers from the National Assembly and deputy ministers from either chamber of parliament.

Ministers with voting powers appointed through the National Assembly are ultimately held accountable by party structures – since National Assembly members are elected through a closed party-list system of proportional representation, they owe their seat to the party, not the constituent.

The Namibian citizenry holds the party accountable at election time, but the individual legislator-minister is buffered from direct constituent pressure.

The new deputy ministers, all of them elected regional councillors from the 2025 regional elections, represent a structural departure from this model.

As President Nandi-Ndaitwah herself confirmed at their swearing-in, the appointments came specifically because these individuals “are all coming from the regional constituencies.”

They were voted in by name, in their communities, on their own records. Their constituencies know who they are. Although this arrangement is still imperfect, it is a meaningful step toward a parliamentary democracy in which the principles of accountability and representation more closely approximate their theoretical ideals.

Namibian democracy is not static. It is a project how President Nandi-Ndaitwah is choosing to govern, whether by design or by political necessity, is a governing philosophy that, in effect, nudges our system toward cleaner separation of powers, stronger constituency-level accountability, and a parliament that is less dominated by an executive bloc.

There is a shortage of analytical minds in social media, which creates unnecessary noise. Social media keyboard warriors who have replaced brain with mouth see jobs for comrades, I see evolution.

If we look closely at what is happening, we see the strengthening of the long arc of Namibian democracy.

*Shonena V. Nathanael is a Youth Activist and a strong advocate for democratic principles