The National Assembly is the

lower chamber A lower house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or oth ...

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

bicameral Bicameralism is a type of legislature, one divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single gr ...

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

. Its laws must be approved by the National Council, the

upper house An upper house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.''Bicameralism'' (1997) by George Tsebelis The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smaller and often has more restric ...

. Since 2014, it has a total of 104 members. 96 members are directly elected through a system of

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some in ...

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

and serve five-year terms. Eight additional members are appointed by the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

. Since 2015,

SWAPO The South West Africa People's Organisation (, SWAPO; af, Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volks Organisasie, SWAVO; german: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former ind ...

member

Peter Katjavivi Peter Hitjitevi Katjavivi (born 12 May 1941) is a Namibian politician who is the Speaker of the National Assembly of Namibia since March 2015 and the chancellor of the Namibia University of Science and Technology from 1992 to 2003. Previously he ...

has been the

Speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** In ...

of the National Assembly. Namibia's National Assembly emerged on

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or more rarely after the end of a military occupation. Many ...

on 21 March 1990 from the

Constituent Assembly of Namibia Below is a list of members of the Constituent Assembly of Namibia, which became the National Assembly of Namibia upon independence in March 1990. Individual members were selected by political parties voted for in the 1989 election, the first de ...

, following the elections of November 1989. That election, following guidelines established by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

, included foreign observers in an effort to ensure a

free and fair election A free and fair election is defined by political scientist Robert Dahl as an election in which "coercion is comparatively uncommon". A free and fair election involves political freedoms and fair processes leading up to the vote, a fair count of el ...

process. The current National Assembly was formed following elections on 27 November 2019.

2019 elections

Previous National Assembly election results

Despite being a

one party dominant state A dominant-party system, or one-party dominant system, is a political occurrence in which a single political party continuously dominates election results over running opposition groups or parties. Any ruling party staying in power for more th ...

since its independence in 1990, Namibian elections have been transparent, free, and largely fair.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Government of Namibia

1990 establishments in Namibia

2019 elections

Previous National Assembly election results

See also

References

External links