WINDHOEK, Nov 21 (AFP) - Namibian President Sam Nujoma's chosen successor, Hifikepunye Pohamba, won a landslide victory with more than 76 percent of the vote in the country's third elections since independence, according to final results released Sunday.
Pohamba, 69, the present lands minister, is set to become Namibia's second president since independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990, replacing Nujoma who has dominated the political scene in this southern African nation for five decades.
The ruling South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) won 75.1 percent of the ballot in last week's parliamentary elections and retained its 55 seats in the 72-member National Assembly, the electoral commission announced.
Pohamba, who got 76.4 percent of the vote according to the final result, on Sunday thanked the voters profusely and promised to fight crime and corruption.
He called for more investments in Namibia and said "transparency in the administration ... and state-owned enterprises shall be vigorously pursued and the fight against corruption shall be intensified.
"We will ensure quality health services to all Namibians, paying special attention to persons affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic."
Pohamba however did not allude to one of the greatest challenges he faces in his five-year term -- the issue of land reform which has sparked fears in some quarters of a Zimbabwe-style land grab.
Around 4,000 farmers, the majority of whom are white, own 44 percent of Namibia's arable land, an imbalance the government has vowed to redress with compensation and a peaceful transfer of land ownership.
Outgoing president Nujoma said his protege was now a "president-elect for all Namibians and not only for the SWAPO party" and added that he would "continue to implement our government programmes as outlined in the national development plans."
The opposition Congress of Democrats (CoD) won 7.3 percent of the vote and only retained four of its seven seats followed by the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) with five percent, half of its previous vote five years ago.
The DTA lost three seats out of seven.
A breakaway party of the DTA, the National Unity of Democratic Organisation (NUDO) won three seats, garnering 4.1 percent of the vote. The United Democratic Front got 3.5 percent.
The elections held Monday and Tuesday attracted an unusually high voter turnout of 84 percent in the vast southern African country, which the opposition questioned and five of their leaders shunned the ceremony in which the full results were announced.
CoD president Ben Ulenga told AFP: "I stayed away because I would have otherwise given stamp of approval to something which I think is not credible."
Henk Mudge, president of the Republican Party said his organisation had sent a letter to the electoral commission late Saturday expressing "serious reservations about the way in which the elections and the counting process were conducted."
"The electoral commission should allow for more involvement by party agents in the activities at polling and counting venues," Mudge said.
The polls are a milestone as they mark the departure of Nujoma, a key figure in the country's political landscape who has ruled since independence.
The 75-year-old leader is to step down in March after 15 years in power, although he will retain the powerful post of president of SWAPO until 2007.
South African President Thabo Mbeki congratulated Pohamba saying: "I am certain that your election will add impetus to the further consolidation and implementation of the African agenda ... as part of efforts of the African leadership to push back the frontiers of poverty and under-development."
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