Hage Geingob was a Namibian politician who served as the third president of Namibia from March 21, 2015 until his death on February 4, 2024. Geingob was the first Prime Minister of Namibia from 1990 to 2002, and served as prime minister again from 2012 to 2015. Between 2008 and 2012 Geingob served as Minister of Trade and Industry. He served as president of the ruling SWAPO Party from November 2017 until his death in February 2024.
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 a 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 the 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 decided that he could not continue his own further education in Namibia. As a teacher, he also resented being forced to participate in 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 had been 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).
Political Journey
In 1972 Geingob was appointed to the United Nations Secretariat as political affairs officer, a position he held until 1975, when he was appointed director of the United Nations Institute for Namibia.
He and his team were responsible for starting the institute, whose primary function was to train cadres who could take over the civil service of Namibia upon independence.
Another important component of the institute was to carry out sectoral research to develop a policy framework for the government of independent Namibia.
Over the years, it grew in stature and institutional relations were established with various institutions of higher learning in Europe, including the University of Warwick, University of East Anglia, and University of Sussex. These and other institutions recognized the institute’s diploma and admitted its graduates for further studies.
Geingob was director of the United Nations Institute for Namibia until 1989. At the same time, he continued to be a member of both the Central Committee and the Politburo of SWAPO.
In 1989, he was elected by the Politburo of SWAPO to spearhead SWAPO’s election campaign in Namibia. To carry out this assignment, he returned to Namibia with many of his colleagues on June 18,1989, after 27 years’ absence from the country.
As SWAPO’s Director of Elections, Geingob, along with other members of his directorate, established SWAPO election centres throughout the country and spearheaded an election campaign that brought SWAPO to power in Namibia.
On November 21, 1989, subsequent to the elections, he was elected chairman of the Constituent Assembly, which was responsible for formulating the Namibian Constitution.
But before a constitution could be formulated, he had to ensure that the Constituent Assembly went through a process of confidence building between the people, who were known for their hatred of each other.
Subsequently, national reconciliation became government policy. Under Geingob’s chairmanship, the Constituent Assembly unanimously adopted the Namibian Constitution on February 9, 1990.
On March 21, 1990, Geingob was sworn in as the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Namibia, and onMarch 21, 1995, he was sworn in for a second term. He served in this capacity for 12 years. As prime minister Geingob introduced modern management approaches to the government; he was also committed to nature conservation coupled with tourism, and in the early 1990s opened the Ongava Lodge, just south of Etosha National Park.
In a cabinet reshuffle on August 27, 2002, Geingob was replaced as prime minister by Theo-Ben Gurirab and appointed Minister of Regional and Local Government and Housing, but declined to accept this lesser position.
Personal Life
Geingob was known to be a die-hard football fan and attended many high-profile games. He regularly attended 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 September 11,1993, 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.
