President Hiikepunye Pohamba
The governing Swapo-Party got 602 580 votes (74 per cent) of the parliamentary vote, maintaining its two-thirds majority.
“I am standing here as a happy person, and want to congratulate Namibians for the decision they took through the democratic process to once more re-elect me as the president of this country,” Pohamba said in his acceptance speech after the announcement of the elections’ results on Friday evening.
He said on behalf of the Swapo-Party, he accepted the outcome of the elections which declared him as president.
“I am very grateful for Namibians by entrusting me with confidence to lead the next government,” he noted.
He also congratulated all the political parties which participated in the National and Presidential elections in their absentia.
Only one political representative attended the event, with reasons only known to them.
Earlier in the day, eight of the 14 opposition parties that took part in the vote vowed to contest the results in court, alleging voting and counting irregularities.
“I do not know whether they have boycotted the event or not, but it is their decision to do so,” said the Namibian Head of State.
He then urged them to try again in the next five years, telling them that they just have to accept the decision of the people.
He also told them to join him and the Swapo-Party for social and economic development, and for peace and stability in the country.
Born on 18 August 1935 at Okanghudi in northern Namibia, Pohamba is Namibia’s political leader, a miner and founder of SWAPO, where he became an organizer for the party.
His political activities led to his arrest, flogging and forced exile in 1961.
After he was arrested for his political activities, he left for Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, but was promptly deported.
He spent four months in prison in Namibia before spending two years under house arrest in Owamboland, in the north of the country.
He then left home to set up Swapo's Angola office. It was on returning from Luanda that he met Former President Sam Nujoma.
Until the 1990s, Pohamba represented Swapo across the African continent, with a brief spell out doing social and political studies in the former Soviet Union.
He headed Swapo's election campaign, before becoming a Member of Parliament in 1990.
He then held the Home Affairs; Fisheries and Marine Resources and Lands Ministries, as well as being named Minister without Portfolio.
In 2002, he also became SWAPO's vice-president.
As former President Nujoma's successor, Pohamba won the 2004 presidential elections with a landslide.
In 2007, Pohamba also succeeded Nujoma as SWAPO-Party leader.
He has six children with Penexupifo, whom he married in 1983.
(NAMPA)