‘Adolf Hitler’ Wins Local Election In Africa

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A politician from Namibia who shares his name with the infamous Nazi Germany leader won re-election for his local seat for the fifth time in a row.

“Adolf Hitler Uunona has represented Ompundja in the Oshana region since 2004 as a member of the South West Africa People’s Organisation, or SWAPO,” Euronews reports.

The 59-year-old goes by Adolf Uunona and said it’s too late to formally change his name.

“It’s in all official documents. It’s too late for that,” he said in 2020, according to the New York Post.

Euronews shared further details:

While Namibia’s Electoral Commission has yet to release the official vote count, Uunona won by a large margin, according to multiple reports.

The 59-year-old has been a popular figure in the small northern constituency of less than 5,000 residents despite his namesake’s legacy, winning the election with 85% of the vote in 2020.

As regional councilor, he has been lauded for his grassroots work and anti-apartheid efforts, domestic media reported.

In an interview with German newspaper Bild in 2020 — when he won his fourth mandate — Uunona said he had “nothing to do” with Nazi ideology.

He also rejected any notion of world domination.

“As a child I saw it as a totally normal name,” Uunona said in the same 2020 interview, according to the New York Post.

“It wasn’t until I was growing up that I realised: This man wanted to subjugate the whole world,” Uunona said.

“I have nothing to do with any of these things,” he added.

More from the New York Post:

The SWAPO party grew out of Namibia’s anti-colonial movement and still campaigns on those themes.

But Germanic names such as Adolf are still common in Namibia, which was once a German colony before passing to South African control and finally gaining independence in 1990.



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