Namibia’s fifth president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the first woman to hold the office, was sworn in on 21 March 2025, the 35th anniversary of independence.
Days later, Lucia Witbooi became the country’s first woman vice president and Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila the first woman speaker in the National Assembly, making Namibia the first country in the world with women in the top three leadership positions.
As I wrote then, this was a victory for democracy, and for the generations of women and girls who had “irrefutable proof that leadership is not a male-only domain” – but that the new president was, and is, “a visionary leader rather than a magician”.
That caution seems newly urgent in light of Linda Robinson’s book, ‘Women in Power: Fighting for Democracy in an Age of Authoritarianism’, published under the Council on Foreign Relations imprint.
The publisher describes the book as “a groundbreaking work of scholarship that explores the deep connection between attacks on women and attacks on democracy”.
Endorsements and interviews on the book’s official page, and a cursory reading of parts of the book (I have not read the entire text and make no claim to give a full summary), Robinson makes the case that misogynistic authoritarianism, weaponised digital disinformation and sexualised smears have become central tools used to push women out of power.
Her profiles feature Tsai Ing-wen’s defence of Taiwan, Kaja Kallas and Maia Sandu’s resistance to Russian hybrid warfare and Mia Mottley’s climate diplomacy “despite sexist attacks”.
DISINFORMATION
Namibia is not Taiwan, Estonia or Moldova and there is no comparable external military threat to its democracy.
But Robinson’s core argument – that women leaders’ legitimacy is contested in ways that male leaders are not, and that this contestation is a measure of democratic health – goes far beyond her case studies.
Namibia has already shown proof.
During the 2024 campaign, Nandi-Ndaitwah was called a “foreign puppet” and traitor by a disinformation network called ‘Deep Intelligence’, while a journalist for the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (who was later suspended) and a political analyst spread false reports that she had collapsed at rallies and misrepresented her age.
A 2022 study by the Internet Society Namibia Chapter found that 65% of women in Namibia who use social media have been victims of online abuse.
Namibia’s minister of information and communication technology, Emma Theofelus, warned that trolling is leading woman politicians to self-censor.
In Dar es Salaam, president Nandi-Ndaitwah herself told an audience that “false and damaging narratives will be spread about you online” and urged women leaders to “learn to ignore them”.
These are Namibian examples of the very dynamic that Robinson describes globally – not evidence that Namibia is heading towards authoritarianism, but a warning that the tools of gendered delegitimisation are already circulating here.
That’s where nuance comes in.
RUMOURS VS REALITIES
Not all criticism of Nandi-Ndaitwah’s government is sexist, and to treat it as such would undermine democratic accountability.
Namibians have a right to ask questions about how her cabinet has performed on unemployment, land reform or the Welwitschia Fund.
What Robinson’s framework helps us to distinguish is legitimate criticism of policy, and attacks on her body, credibility or right to lead simply because she is a woman – contrived health rumours, sexualised smears, or claims that a woman president is inherently unfit.
As I wrote when comparing Namibia’s stable transition and Tanzania’s contested elections under president Samia Hassan, “women’s leadership is not based on their gender… it depends on the strength of democratic institutions, the rule of law and political culture”.
Women leaders are diverse political actors, not moral exemplars, and should be judged by the same constitutional standards as everyone else – while institutions must still guard against the specific, gendered forms of hostility they face.
A DOORWAY NOT A DESTINATION
The deeper question Robinson’s book poses for Namibia is: does a woman at the top alter the structure beneath her?
The numbers are indeed impressive: women hold 57% of cabinet positions and around 38–40% of National Assembly seats, courtesy of Swapo’s voluntary ‘zebra’ quota system, and Namibia ranks first in Africa and eighth in the world on the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index.
But, as the Heinrich Böll Foundation has noted, “representation is a doorway, not the destination”.
Women make up only 18% of the workforce and 10% of leadership positions in the mining industry, and rural regional councils, unlike urban local authorities with quotas, remain overwhelmingly male.
It is estimated that one third of women aged 15-49 have been subjected to intimate-partner violence.
Since April 2024, more than 4 400 gender-based violence cases, including 1 345 rapes, have been recorded (between April 2024 and February 2025). Youth unemployment stands at approximately 38%, with overall joblessness at around 37%.
None of this is within the president’s power to fix by herself, nor proof that her presidency has failed – it is proof that symbolic breakthroughs at the apex of power do not automatically trickle down into structural change below it, in parliament’s regional tiers, traditional authorities, universities or corporate boardrooms.
BOYS AND MEN
Bridging that gap is a collective responsibility, in line with Namibia’s obligations under the Southern African Development community Protocol on Gender and Development, the Beijing Declaration and the fifth Sustainable Development Goal.
Parties should also apply gender quotas to regional and local elections where they are voluntary or absent.
Newsrooms need to develop verification protocols for the health, age or personal lives of women candidates and treat gendered disinformation as the electoral threat it is.
Universities and civil society should keep building leadership pipelines for young women, but they should also – as I have argued elsewhere – frankly address the growing gaps in education and employment for boys and young men, because a gender policy that only counts women is an incomplete one.
Whether you agree with her policies or not, citizens across party lines have a duty to stand up against misogynistic attacks on a woman leader.
TIME WILL TELL
Namibia’s achievement does not warrant romanticisation.
Nandi-Ndaitwah is not evidence that women are better at ethical governance than men, nor is she a magician who can turn around three decades of structural inequality in a single term.
She is a constitutional officer who must be evaluated – as should Robinson’s international subjects – on implementation, transparency and results, and be defended, as must be democracy itself, against the gendered hostility that increasingly passes for real political debate.
Whether the ladder Namibia climbed becomes wider for her feet, or whether history just shrinks again once she steps off it, will help determine her legacy.
– Michael Conteh is a gender specialist and publicly engaged scholar; linsobob@gmail.com.
