Adolf Hitler running for re-election

The Namibian regional councilor is expected to win again after a landslide victory in 2020, Bild has reported

A Namibian regional politician Adolf Hitler Uunona, named after the Nazi leader but who rejects any link to his ideology, is running for re-election in northern Namibia, the German tabloid Bild reported on Tuesday.

The 59-year-old member of the ruling left-wing SWAPO party is standing again in the Ompundja constituency in the Oshana region, where regional elections are scheduled for November 26. Uunona, who has served as a councilor in the area since 2004, is widely expected to keep his seat after winning about 85% of the vote in 2020, the paper said.

Uunona first drew international attention that year, when his full name was picked up by international media during the election. He has said his father deliberately named him after Hitler but likely did not understand the full history of the Nazi leader. “My father named me after this man. He probably didn’t understand what Adolf Hitler stood for. As a child, I saw it as a totally normal name,” the Namibian said at the time.

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He stressed that he absolutely does not support Nazi ideology. “Only as I grew up did I realize: This man wanted to subjugate the whole world. I have nothing to do with any of these things.”

Namibia, formerly known as German South West Africa, was a German colony from 1884 until South African forces seized the territory in 1915 during WWI. The territory remained under South African administration until independence in 1990, but German influence from the colonial era endures in place names and personal names. First names such as Adolf remain relatively common among the older generations.