Hage Geingob

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Hage Gottfried Geingob (born 3 August 1941) is the third and current president of Namibia, in office since 21 March 2015.

Geingob was the first Prime Minister of Namibia from 21 March 1990 to 28 August 2002, and served as Prime Minister again from 4 December 2012 to 21 March 2015.

Between 2008 and 2012 Geingob served as Minister of Trade and Industry.

He is also the current president of the ruling SWAPO Party since his election to the position in November 2017. In November 2014, Geingob was elected president of Namibia by an overwhelming margin.

In November 2017, Geingob became the third president of SWAPO after winning by large margin at the party's 6th Congress. In August 2018, Geingob began a one-year term as chairperson of the Southern African Development Community.

Early life

Geingob was born in Otjiwarongo, South West Africa (present day Namibia), in 1941. He received his early education at Otavi in South West Africa under the Bantu Education System. He joined the Augustineum, where most of today's prominent political leaders of Namibia were educated, in 1958. In 1960, he was expelled from Augustineum for having participated in a march in protest at the poor quality of education. He was, however, readmitted and finished the teacher-training course in 1961. Subsequently, he took up a teaching position at the Tsumeb Primary School in Central Namibia, but soon discovered that his thirst for knowledge was unlikely to be quenched in Namibia. As a teacher, he also hated being an unwilling instrument in perpetuating the Bantu Education System.

Therefore, at the end of the school year, he left his job to seek knowledge and instruction that could help him change the system. He and three of his colleagues walked and hitchhiked to Botswana to escape the system. From Botswana, he was scheduled to go to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on a plane chartered by the African National Congress (ANC), but the plane was blown up by South Africans. However, the bomb that was planted on the plane went off prematurely, before the plane was able to take off. Subsequently, the apartheid regime also tightened up the "underground railway". As a result, Geingob stayed in Botswana, where he served as Assistant South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) Representative (1963–64).

Personal life

Geingob is known to be a die-hard football fan and has attended many high-profile games. He also regularly attends the Namibia Annual Music Awards (NAMAs), and in his youth sang in a choir, and played in a band.

In 1967 Geingob married Priscilla Charlene Cash, a New York City native; the couple had one daughter, Nangula Geingos-Dukes. Geingob later married Loini Kandume, a businesswoman, on 11 September 1993, in Windhoek, in a high-profile marriage which resulted in two children: a daughter and a son. Geingob initiated divorce proceedings against Kandume in May 2006, and he was granted a provisional divorce order in July 2008. Geingob married Monica Kalondo on February 14, 2015. Hage Geingob Rugby Stadium and the University of Namibia's Medical School Campus both in Windhoek are named after him.

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Career as politician and educationist

Geingob was elected as the head of the United Nations Secretariat in 1972, a post he held until 1975, when he was appointed director of the UN Institute for Namibia. He and his staff were responsible for the establishment of the institute, which was designed to prepare cadres capable of taking over Namibia's civil service. Another important part of the institute was to perform sectoral analysis in order to establish a policy framework for the government of independent Namibia. It has risen in stature and institutional links with a variety of institutions of higher education in Europe, including the University of Warwick, University of East Anglia, and University of Sussex. These and other organizations recognized the institute's degree and welcomed students for further study.

Before 1989, Geingob was the head of the United Nations Institute for Namibia. He continued to serve on both the Central Committee and the Politburo of SWAPO at the same time.

He was elected by the Politburo of SWAPO in 1989 to head SWAPO's election campaign in Namibia. After 27 years of absence from Namibia, he returned to Namibia with many of his coworkers on June 18, 1989, completing the mission. Geingob, the country's Director of Elections, joined SWAPO election centers across the region, spearheading an election campaign that brought SWAPO to power in Namibia.

He was elected chairman of the Constituent Assembly, which was responsible for drafting the Namibian Constitution, on November 21, 1989, immediately following the 1989 referendum. However, before a constitution was drafted, he had to guarantee that the Constituent Assembly went through a process of confidence building between the two groups, who had long been known for their looling of each other. National reconciliation was then incorporated into government policy, which led to the change of direction. The Constituent Assembly unanimously adopted the Namibian Constitution under Geingob's chairmanship on February 9, 1990.

Geingob was elected as the first Prime Minister of Namibia on March 21, 1990, and on March 21, 1995, he was sworn in for a second term. He has been working in this capacity for 12 years. Geingob, the prime minister, introduced modern management techniques to the administration, but he was also dedicated to nature preservation and tourism, and the Ongava Lodge opened in the early 1990s, just south of Etosha National Park.

Geingob was recalled as Prime Minister by Theo-Ben Gurirab and named Minister of Regional and Local Government and Housing, but he refused to accept this lower position in a cabinet reshuffle on August 27, 2002. He had finished ninth in the party's central committee, with 368 votes, but the SWAPO's central committee had failed to elect him to the SWAPO central committee on September 15; the lowest scoring candidate received 35 votes.

Geingob, a Democrat from Washington, D.C., was chosen to serve as Executive Secretary of the Global Coalition for Africa in 2003. The Global Coalition for Africa is an intergovernmental forum that brings together top African policymakers and their international allies in order to find agreement on Africa's top priority development problems. Africa can only develop from within, but it does need outside assistance to do so. He wanted to work with African continental and regional organizations and Africa's development partners in the aftermath of conflict resolution in Africa, the promotion of good governance in African countries, and the integration of African economies into the global economy.

Geingob, who was still in Washington assisting with the Global Coalition for Africa, came in second in the nomination of SWAPO parliamentary candidates by party delegates on October 2nd. He left the Global Coalition for Africa and returned to Namibia to vote in the November 2004 presidential election, in which he gained a seat.

On April 18, 2007, Geingob became the party's Chief Whip of SWAPO. In mid-2007, he was brought back to the SWAPO Politburo, filling one of two vacancies. The politburo field named Geingob as the sole candidate for the post of vice president of SWAPO in November 2007, just a few weeks before a party congress. He was therefore elected without opposition on November 29, 2007, and appointed Minister of Trade and Industry on 8th of 2008.

Geingob was elected vice president at the 2012 SWAPO congress on December 2nd, a relection that is expected to make him the successor to Hifikepunye Pohamba as Namibia's president. The delegates gave Geingob 312 votes, while Jerry Ekandjo received 220 and Pendukeni Ida 64. Following the congress, Pohamba appointed Geingob prime minister Geingob on December 4, 2012.

Geingob, the SWAPO candidate, was elected President of Namibia by a wide margin on 28 November 2014, receiving 87% of the vote. On March 21, 2015, he was sworn in as President; 15 regional Heads of State and Government attended the event. Following his inauguration, Geingob appointed Emma Theofelus, Patience Masua, and Daisry Mathias. In November 2019, Geingob was reelected with 56.3 percent of the vote.

When speaking to a newspaper in December 2016, he advised the US to join the International Criminal Court to ensure that the court is not specifically targeting Africans.

Since being elected to the position in 2018, he is SADC's current chairperson.

Geingob was involved in the Fishburn affair in April 2021, according to the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and The Namibian, by reportedly ordering a government official to divertt funds from a state-owned fishing company to bribe attendees of the 2017 SWAPO electoral congress to vote for him.

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Awards, honours and recognition

• In 1980, awarded the Palmes Academiques (Officer Class) by the French Government in recognition of valuable services in education.
• In 1987, awarded Omugulugwombashe Medal (SWAPO) for bravery and long service.
• In 1994, awarded LL.D. Honoris Causa by Columbia College, Illinois.
• In 1994, awarded the second highest order in Cuba, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes.
• In 1994, awarded the Order of the Sun, 1st Class by the Government of Namibia for providing outstanding political leadership.
• In 1995, awarded LL.D. (Doctorate of Laws) Honoris Causa by the University of Delhi, India.
• In 1997, awarded LL.D. (Doctorate of Laws) Honoris Causa by the University of Namibia.
• In 1998, awarded Doctorate of Humane Letters (Honoris Causa) by The American University of Rome.
• In 2001, a new school aimed at educating deprived children was opened in Katutura and named after the president. The Hage G. Geingob High School educates many from the informal settlements around Windhoek.
• In 2015, was conferred the Order of the Most Ancient Welwitschia Mirabilis by then-President Hifikepunye Pohamba, upon Geingob's inauguration as Namibia's third President on 21 March 2015