Concern has been rising over Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba’s health after he was hospitalised two weeks ago for what was reported to be a mild stroke.
Questions are being asked about how effective he will be in future as head of state and whether he will complete his current term of office, which ends in 2015.
Rumours have been swirling in Windhoek since two local papers reported that Pohamba was admitted to a local private hospital shortly before the African Union summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
Citing unnamed sources close to the Pohamba family, the Namibian reported that they were “very concerned” about his wellbeing after he suffered a mild stroke about two weeks ago.
Pohamba was subsequently discharged and told to rest, but he now walked with a cane, the newspaper reported. The president, who will be 76 next month, was also suffering from severe gout, it added.
But none of the leading officials in the government would confirm this. Prime Minister Nahas Angula declined to comment, referring all queries to State House.
Albert Kawana, the minister for presidential affairs, who is also the attorney general, insisted that the president was “as fit as a fiddle” and that the spell in hospital was for a routine medical check-up. But Kawana refused to say more, which did little to quell rumours that an exhausted-looking Pohamba had, in fact, suffered a stroke.
Sources close to the presidency confirmed that Pohamba did appear to have suffered a light stroke, but they referred more detailed questions to the private clinic, which refused to comment on a patient’s medical condition.
The fact that Angula was delegated to represent Namibia at the AU heads of state summit fuelled the rumour machine, especially as Pohamba has come under increasing public criticism for his lack of leadership.
If he is ill, it could amount to a major game-changer in Swapo’s internal politics of succession — in terms of Article 34 of the Namibian Constitution, the prime minister must take over as president if the latter becomes incapacitated. If Angula cannot assume these duties, the mantle of succession falls on the deputy prime minister, currently Marco Hausiku. If he cannot or does not take the reins, the Cabinet has to delegate a stand-in.
But this is at odds with the ruling party’s own constitution, which automatically designates the Swapo vice-president — a position currently held by Trade and Industry Minister Hage Geingob — as the presidential successor.
Pohamba recently banned any public discussion within the ruling party on the issue of presidential succession after Swapo Youth League president Elijah Ngurare raised the issue on his Facebook page.
Ngurare’s statements appear to have been prompted by the campaign by Deputy Housing Minister Kazenambo Kazenambo to push for Geingob as a non-Oshiwambo presidential candidate. Underpinning this is the notion that any successful presidential campaign must have the support of Swapo’s central-northern heartland, formerly Ovamboland, to stand any chance of being elected.
Party insiders point to Geingob’s lack of a real ethnic constituency — he hails from the minority Damara tribe, which largely supports the small United Democratic Front party — and, for this reason, he would be the weakest presidential candidate that Swapo could field in the next election.
A former prime minister who was suddenly dumped for unknown reasons by former president Sam Nujoma in 2002, Geingob has assiduously courted the emerging black business lobby, undertaking several high-profile foreign visits in an apparent effort to reinforce his stature as Namibia’s second-most-senior statesman.
Geingob’s former protégé, Justice Minister and Swapo secretary general Pendukeni Ithana, is also known to harbour ambitions to become Namibia’s first female president.
Other possible contenders are trade unionist and Minister of Regional and Local Government and Housing Jerry Ekandjo and the young Education Minister, Abraham Iyambo, who is seen as one of the most competent members of Pohamba’s Cabinet.
But all this will be moot if Pohamba’s health deteriorates and cannot fulfil his official duties and Angula takes over.
Having already declared his ambitions in 2004, unexpectedly Angula has become the prime candidate endorsed by the constitution itself.