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11/21/2004:

"SWAPO Declared Winner in Namibia Election"

WINDHOEK (Reuters) - A former comrade-in-arms hand-picked by former guerrilla leader Sam Nujoma won election on Sunday to succeed him as Namibian president.

Hifikepunye Pohamba, who won 76.4 percent of the vote, is widely expected to remain in the shadow of Nujoma, who will retain the leadership of his SWAPO party after stepping down as president in March.

Pohamba, 69, who spent three decades in exile as Nujoma's confidant before Namibia won independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990, has made redistribution of land from white farmers to blacks a key plank of his campaign.

While he promises to cut poverty, critics say the election of another liberation veteran will do little to show that SWAPO is moving on from that struggle, or change the picture for foreigners who have been slow to invest in Namibia.

SWAPO, which turned from guerrilla movement to political party after independence, also won 55 out of 72 parliamentary seats, according to official results released on Sunday. The election ended on Tuesday.

``I'm gratified and humbled by the five-year mandate entrusted to me to continue the social-economic struggle for our country and its people,'' the Soviet-educated Pohamba said at an official ceremony announcing the result.

Pohamba, who lacks Nujoma's charisma, is not believed to have sought the presidency until Nujoma tapped him to become vice president of SWAPO in 2002.

He said he wanted to encourage foreign investment -- very limited before 1990, when South Africa was subject to sanctions because of apartheid, and now concentrated in large mines.

He has served as lands minister, leading a campaign to distribute land from minority whites to poor blacks, and said this would be among his top priorities as president, along with crime, corruption and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Land reform is a hot topic across southern Africa, where centuries of white domination have left much of the productive land in the hands of white minorities.
Full Article: nytimes.com