Namibia will have its first female leader after VP wins presidential election for the ruling party

WINDHOEK, Namibia (AP) — Namibia elected its first female leader as Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah was declared the winner Tuesday of a presidential election last week that was tarnished by technical glitches that caused a three-day extension to allow votes to be cast, and rejected as illegal by opposition parties.

The 72-year-old Nandi-Ndaitwah won with 57% of the vote, defying predictions that she might be forced into a runoff.

Her ruling SWAPO party also retained its parliamentary majority, although by a very thin margin, and extended its 34-year hold on power since the southern African country gained independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990.

Namibia, a sparsely populated country of around 3 million on the southwestern coast of Africa, has a reputation for being one of the continent's more stable democracies and the problems around the election have caused consternation.

Last Wednesday's vote was marred by shortages of ballot papers and other problems that led election officials to extend voting until Saturday. Opposition parties have said the extension is unconstitutional, and some have pledged to join together in a legal appeal to have the election invalidated.

The Electoral Commission of Namibia, which ran the election, rejected opposition calls for a redo of the vote.

It has undermined Nandi-Ndaitwah's place in history. She is set to become her country's fifth president since independence and a rare female leader in Africa. She was a member of Namibia's underground independence movement in the 1970s and received part of her higher education in the then-Soviet Union.

She was promoted to vice president in February after President Hage Geingob died while in office. Nangolo Mbumba, who became president after Geingob's death, didn't run in the election.

The ruling SWAPO party won 51 seats in the parliamentary vote, only just passing the 49 it needed to keep its majority and narrowly avoiding becoming another long-ruling party to be rejected in southern Africa this year. It was SWAPO's worst parliamentary election result.

A mood of change has swept across the region, with parties that led their countries out of white minority or colonial rule in neighboring South Africa and Botswana both losing their long-held political dominance.

South Africa's African National Congress, which freed the country from the racist system of apartheid, lost its 30-year majority in an election in May and had to form a coalition. Botswana's ruling party was stunningly removed in a landslide in October after governing for 58 years since independence from Britain.

Mozambique's long-ruling Frelimo has been accused of rigging an October election and has faced weeks of violent protests against its rule.

SWAPO faced similar challenges as those countries, with frustration at high unemployment and economic hardship, especially among young people, driving a desire for era-ending change.

In a brief speech after the results were announced late Tuesday night, Nandi-Ndaitwah said Namibians had voted for peace, stability and youth empowerment.

“We are going to do what we promised you during the campaigns. Thank you for your confidence and trust in us," she said. Nandi-Ndaitwah was also due to address the nation on Wednesday morning.

“SWAPO Wins. Netumbo Wins. Namibia Wins. Now Hard Work,” the ruling party posted on its official account on social media site X.

Some opposition parties boycotted the announcement by the Electoral Commission of Namibia at its results center in the capital, Windhoek. The commission has been roundly criticized for its running of the vote, with many angry Namibians complaining they had to wait hours and sometimes over multiple days for the chance to vote.

Just over 1 million votes were cast out of 1.4 million registered voters, according to the electoral commission.

Panduleni Itula, the leading opposition candidate from the Independent Patriots for Change party, was second in the presidential election with 25% of the vote. His party won the second-largest number of seats in Parliament behind SWAPO.

Itula and his party have led the criticism of the vote and said they will lodge their appeal against the election this week. Other opposition parties said they will join that legal challenge.

Itula has said that thousands of voters may have been prevented from voting as only some polling stations allowed an extension. "This election has violated the very tenets of our Electoral Act. Namibians deserve the right to choose their leaders freely and fairly, not through a rigged process,” he said.

Namibia is a former German colony that came under South African control after World War I and its Black majority was later subjected to some of South Africa’s apartheid policies. SWAPO was at the forefront of the battle for independence from South Africa.

While the country has swaths of desert running through it, it has diamond and uranium resources and untapped oil and gas off its coast that is being explored by international companies and could make it a major producer of both.

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

Namibians queue to cast their votes in a presidential election in Windhoek, Namibia Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Dirk Heinrich)

Namibians queue to cast their votes in presidential elections in Windhoek, Namibia, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Dirk Heinrich)

Namibians queue to cast their votes in presidential elections in Windhoek, Namibia, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Dirk Heinrich)

Namibians queue to cast their votes in presidential elections in Windhoek, Namibia, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Dirk Heinrich)

Namibians queue to cast their votes in presidential elections in Windhoek, Namibia, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Dirk Heinrich)

Namibians queue to cast their votes in a presidential election in Windhoek, Namibia Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Dirk Heinrich)

Namibia's vice president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, of the ruling South West Africa People's Organization, (SWAPO) casts her vote in a presidential election, in Windhoek, Namibia, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Esther Mbathera)

Namibia's vice president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, of the ruling South West Africa People's Organization, (SWAPO) waves as she casts her vote in a presidential election in Windhoek, Namibia, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Esther Mbathera)

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri man is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday evening for sexually assaulting and strangling a 9-year-old girl whose body was thrown into a sinkhole.

Christopher Collings, 49, was set to receive a single injection of the sedative pentobarbital at or after 6 p.m. CST for the 2007 murder of fourth-grader Rowan Ford.

The girl was assaulted and strangled with a length of rope in the tiny southwestern Missouri town of Stella, on Nov. 3, 2007, and her body was discovered six days later in the sinkhole outside town.

Collings' fate appeared to be sealed on Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court denied an appeal and Republican Gov. Mike Parson turned aside a clemency request. Parson, a former sheriff, has overseen 12 previous executions and never granted clemency.

Collings’ execution would be the 23rd in the U.S. this year and the fourth in Missouri — Brian Dorsey was executed on April 9, David Hosier on June 11 and Marcellus Williams on Sept. 24. Only Alabama with six and Texas with five have performed more executions in 2024.

Rowan was a fourth-grader described by teachers at Collings' trial as a hard-working and happy student, a lover of Barbie dolls who had her room painted pink. Collings was a friend of Rowan's stepfather, David Spears, and lived for several months in 2007 at the home Rowan shared with Spears and Rowan's mother, Colleen Munson. The child called Collings “Uncle Chris.”

Collings told authorities that he drank heavily and smoked marijuana with Spears and another man in the hours before the attack on Rowan, according to court records. Collings said he picked up the still-sleeping child from her bed, took her to the camper where he lived, and assaulted her there.

Collings told police that he planned to take Rowan back home, leading her outside the camper facing away from him so that she couldn't identify who assaulted her. But when moonlight lit up the darkness, Rowan was able to see him, Collings told police. He said he “freaked out,” grabbed a rope from a nearby pickup truck and killed her.

Munson returned home from work at 9 a.m. on Nov. 3 and was alarmed when she couldn’t find Rowan. Court records said Spears insisted Rowan was at a friend’s house. But when Rowan failed to return home by the afternoon, Munson called police, prompting a massive search.

Collings, Spears and a third man became the focus of police attention because they were the last people seen at Rowan's home. Collings told police that after killing Rowan, he took the body to a sinkhole. He burned the rope used in the attack, along with the clothes he was wearing and his bloodstained mattress, prosecutors said.

Court documents and the clemency petition said Spears also implicated himself in the crimes. A transcript of Spears’ statement to police, cited in the clemency petition, said Spears told officers that Collings handed him a cord and Spears killed Rowan.

“I choke her with it. I realize she’s gone. She’s ... she’s really gone,” Spears said, according to the transcript. Meanwhile, court documents said it was Spears who led authorities to the sinkhole where the body was found.

But Spears was allowed to plead to lesser charges. It wasn't clear why. Prosecutors at the original trial didn't respond to messages seeking comment.

Spears served more than seven years in prison before being released in 2015. No phone listing could be found for Spears.

The clemency petition said Collings suffered from a brain abnormality that created "functional deficits in awareness, judgment and deliberation, comportment, appropriate social inhibition, and emotional regulation.” It also noted that he was frequently abused and sexually abused as a child.

“The result was a damaged human being with no guidance on how to grow into a functioning adult,” the petition stated.

The clemency petition and the Supreme Court appeal both challenged the reliability of the key law enforcement witness at Collings’ trial, a police chief from a neighboring town who had four AWOL convictions while serving in the Army. Failure to disclose details about that criminal history at trial violated Collings’ right to due process, Collings' attorney, Jeremy Weis, contended.

“His credibility was really at the heart of the entire case against Mr. Collings,” Weis said in an interview.

This last name of the victim's mother has been corrected to Munson, not Spears.

This undated photo provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections shows Christopher Collings. (Missouri Department of Corrections via AP)