Hifikepunye Pohamba

Hifikepunye Lucas Pohamba (born in 1935) is a politician Namibia N, elected president at the time of the elections of the 15 and November 16th 2004. Pohamba was invested the March 21st 2005.

Biography

Hifikepunye Pohamba was born the August 18th 1935 with Okanghudi, in the area of Ohangwena in the center-north of the South-western African, then under South-African mandate .

After studies in the mission local Anglican, Pohamba finds a work as a secretary in a copper mine. It takes part in the foundation of the trade union SWAPO ( South-West Africa People' S Organization ) in 1960. This creation will be heavy consequences: Pohamba is stopped by the local leaders, is connected and whipped in public. It leaves then in Rhodesia before being expelled about it in 1961 towards African South-west. It spends four months in prison before being assigned with residence during two years.

Again in exile of 1964 to 1966, Hifikepunye Pohamba returns to the country with its mentor Sam Nujoma when the government of Pretoria notifies to UNO that exiled are free to return. They take again the fight then what leads Pohamba to still take again the road of the exile.

In 1970, he is elected at the central committee of Swapo and seven years later at the political office of the party. Installed in Angola where MPLA leaves it quiet, he established an office of the SWAPO with Luanda and travels to Africa to make hear the claims of the SWAPO.

In 1980, Pohamba leaves to Moscow to study at the Institute Patrice Lumumba of friendship between the people. It obtains a diploma of political sciences there. Pohamba is involved militarily in Zambia and Tanzania, the SWAPO also taking actions of guerilla against the South-African capacity which manages in fact, since the end of its legal mandate in 1968, the grounds of African South-west/Namibia.

After the agreements of 1988 between South Africa and UNO, Pohamba returns in 1989 to prepare the first Namibian elections as a campaign director of the SWAPO. This one gains the elections (57% of the votes) and Pohamba is elected appointed.

Independence is declared the March 21st 1990. Sam Nujoma becomes president and Pohamba obtains the ministry for the interior. It will hold also the posts of minister of fishings and the maritime resources and Minister for the grounds.

As a Minister for the grounds, Pohamba is charged to conclude the land reform: the white farmers, former colonists, hold, as with the Zimbabwe the major part of the cultivable grounds. It pursued the policy of its predecessor, putting in relation white wishing to sell and of the black purchasers before preaching for the installation a policy of forced expropriation, copied on that of Robert Mugabe, without concrete action for the moment in front of the reserve of old the Prime Minister Hage Geingob.

Pohamba also assembles in the hierarchy of the SWAPO while becoming vice-president in 2002, the president remaining since 1960 irremovable Nujoma.

Always in the shade of the father of Namibian independence Sam Nujoma, Pohamba becomes candidate of SWAPO at the time of the congress of the May 30th 2004. One will have needed all the political help of Nujoma so that Pohamba succeeds in being essential like official candidate of the SWAPO, getting rid of the two other candidates Hidipo Hamutenya and Nahas Angula with denigration campaigns or of pure and simple dismissal for Hamutenya a few days before the congress of the SWAPO.

In its political program, Pohamba promised to fight against corruption, criminality, the expansion of the AIDS and for a redistribution of the arable lands.

He is elected president at the time of the elections of the 15 and November 16th 2004 with 76,4% of the voices, and the transfer of power with Sam Nujoma was carried out the March 21st 2005. With legislative taking place in parallel, the SWAPO obtains 55 seats out of 72. Since he is president, Pohamba has surprised much observers by its moderation and its modesty, contrary has Sam Nujoma who was known for his sudden changes of mood repeated against the homosexual ones, the political white, and its enemies, inter alia.

Pohamba married in 1983 and is the father of 6 children.

See too

List of the current leaders

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