Nandi-Ndaitwah shifts gears in Namibia’s women-in-power journey – The Mail & Guardian

Nandi-Ndaitwah shifts gears in Namibia’s women-in-power journey – The Mail & Guardian

Namibia’s cabinet had only two women — barely 5.5% — at independence in 1990. Dr Libertina Amathila and Dr Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana stood alone among a sea of male ministers, symbols of a liberation struggle that had empowered women to fight but not yet to govern. In the first parliament, only four of 72 members were women — Amathila, Iivula-Ithana, Loide Shinavene and Elisabeth Amukugo — and politics remained a man’s arena, its language of power…