Frailty, ill health and men­tal de­cline are crit­i­cisms of­ten lobbed by am­bi­tious younger politi­cians aim­ing to oust age­ing lead­ers. Whether valid con­cerns or veiled ageism, these nar­ra­tives are used as tools to dis­cred­it. In the lead-up to the US pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, for­mer pres­i­dent Joe Biden was fre­quent­ly por­trayed as con­fused and in­ca­pable—clips of him stum­bling or strug­gling for words were re­peat­ed­ly aired by cer­tain me­dia out­lets to re­in­force this per­cep­tion.

Na­ture may de­mand the old li­on make way for the young, but in pol­i­tics, the sto­ry is of­ten more com­plex.

Take Namib­ia: 72-year-old Ne­tum­bo Nan­di-Ndait­wah (NNN) has de­fied the odds to be­come the coun­try’s first fe­male pres­i­dent. De­spite in­ter­nal di­vi­sions with­in her par­ty, SWAPO, and mount­ing na­tion­al dis­sat­is­fac­tion, she de­feat­ed younger chal­lengers and se­cured 58% of the vote—thanks in large part to SWAPO’s en­dur­ing ma­chin­ery.

SWAPO, once com­mand­ing 70–80% of the elec­torate, saw its sup­port fall to 56% in the last elec­tion. This time, they gam­bled on his­to­ry-mak­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence, and it paid off. Ac­cord­ing to Pro­fes­sor Hen­ning Mel­ber, of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pre­to­ria, NNN’s can­di­da­cy was not put to a vote but rather “elect­ed” by ac­cla­ma­tion—a de­ci­sion rem­i­nis­cent of T&T’s re­cent PM se­lec­tion.

Namib­ia’s youth—who make up about 60% of vot­ers—ul­ti­mate­ly didn’t swing to younger can­di­dates. As Ha­jo Lance not­ed, SWAPO’s lega­cy, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al depth, and grass­roots an­chor­ing out­weighed grow­ing frus­tra­tions over un­em­ploy­ment, hous­ing short­ages, cor­rup­tion, and in­equal­i­ty. The op­po­si­tion, though vo­cal in me­dia spaces, re­mains frag­ment­ed and un­co­or­di­nat­ed. Lance warned that on­ly a unit­ed op­po­si­tion could mount a re­al chal­lenge come 2029.

The po­lit­i­cal dy­nam­ics in Namib­ia echo sim­i­lar con­ver­sa­tions tak­ing place 6,000 miles away in the Caribbean. Aged lead­er­ship, in­ter­nal par­ty strug­gles, vot­er ap­a­thy, and erod­ing trust in in­sti­tu­tions are not unique to one na­tion.

NNN’s vic­to­ry wasn’t with­out dis­pute. Some polling sta­tions re­mained open well past the of­fi­cial clos­ing time, prompt­ing le­gal chal­lenges—re­call­ing sim­i­lar com­plaints dur­ing T&T’s 2015 Gen­er­al Elec­tion in the St Joseph con­stituen­cy.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Ndum­ba Kamwanyah sum­marised the grow­ing con­cern: “The coun­try risks slid­ing in­to a fu­ture where elec­tions are not seen as a cel­e­bra­tion of democ­ra­cy, but as a con­test to see who can ma­nip­u­late the sys­tem bet­ter.”

Still, NNN has promised change. Nan­di-Ndait­wah’s vowed to in­cul­cate a cul­ture of mer­i­toc­ra­cy, im­ple­ment quar­ter­ly per­for­mance eval­u­a­tions for min­is­ters, and in­stall a dash­board to mon­i­tor gov­ern­ment projects. Her am­bi­tion to re­duce food im­ports to 80% by 2028 in­cludes the de­vel­op­ment of 130,000-hectare “su­per farms” and bil­lions in in­fra­struc­ture, in­clud­ing sports sta­di­ums. She al­so promis­es free ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion, uni­ver­sal health­care, 50,000 new homes, and land re­form. Fa­mil­iar promis­es—mir­rored in the po­lit­i­cal land­scapes of many coun­tries, in­clud­ing our own.

Yet, scep­ti­cism re­mains. The Namib­ian news­pa­pers ques­tioned her plan to launch a new na­tion­al air­line by 2026, giv­en the cost­ly fail­ure of Air Namib­ia—a sce­nario echo­ing the Caribbean’s BWIA and CAL strug­gles. Crit­ics ar­gue she’s been in gov­ern­ment for years and is on­ly now vo­cal­is­ing con­cerns for po­lit­i­cal gain. Op­po­si­tion fig­ures, like Max­i­malliant Katjimune and Li­falaza Simataa, dis­missed her re­cent ac­count­abil­i­ty dri­ve as mere elec­tion­eer­ing.

While NNN presents her­self as a “new broom,” ready to sweep out cor­rup­tion and in­ef­fi­cien­cy, po­lit­i­cal ob­servers urge cau­tion.

“We have to wait and see to what ex­tent such de­clared aims and promis­es will be im­ple­ment­ed,” says Hen­ning Mel­ber. An­a­lyst Sakaria Jo­hannes added, “The na­tion wants to see ac­tion, not just speech­es.”

NNN has not shied away from con­fronta­tion. Nan­di-Ndait­wah crit­i­cised US visa poli­cies and promised to rec­i­p­ro­cate Don­ald Trump-style im­mi­gra­tion en­force­ment. She de­mand­ed Ger­many ac­knowl­edge and atone for its colo­nial geno­cide, and in a bold move, an­nounced plans to na­tion­alise Namib­ia’s pe­tro­le­um sec­tor—home to an es­ti­mat­ed 11 bil­lion bar­rels of oil—much to the dis­may of en­er­gy gi­ants like Shell and To­tal­En­er­gies.

This na­tion­al­ist rhetoric evokes mem­o­ries of lead­ers like Dr Er­ic Williams, who na­tion­alised T&T’s oil in­dus­try and oust­ed Amer­i­can in­flu­ence. But his­to­ry has shown that poli­cies that seem bold to­day may not be sus­tain­able to­mor­row. Gov­ern­ments change. Pri­or­i­ties shift. And too of­ten, the cy­cle of promis­es and dis­ap­point­ment re­peats.

Glob­al­ly, cit­i­zens are caught in a pat­tern: new lead­ers, new pledges, yet the same old frus­tra­tions. Bu­reau­crat­ic in­er­tia, dis­il­lu­sion­ment among work­ers, and a sur­vival-first mind­set con­tribute to poor ser­vice de­liv­ery. Whether in Namib­ia, the Caribbean, or the US, the chal­lenge re­mains—how do we move be­yond speech­es to re­al, last­ing change?

NNN’s pres­i­den­cy stands at a cross­roads. Will Nan­di-Ndait­wah build on SWAPO’s lega­cy or pre­side over its con­tin­ued de­cline? The world is watch­ing—not just for Namib­ia’s sake, but be­cause her sto­ry mir­rors so many oth­ers.