A man named after Adolf Hitler has swept to victory in regional elections in Namibia.
According to official results, Adolf Hitler Uunona beat his opponent by 1,196 votes to 213 in the race for local councilor in Ompundja, a constituency in the Oshana region.
Mr Uunona represents the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo), which governs Namibia at the national level.
He told German publisher Bild, that his father named him without realising the connotations.
“As a child I saw it as a totally normal name,” he added. “Only as a teenager did I understand that this man wanted to conquer the whole world.”
Mr Uunona joked that the unusual moniker “doesn’t mean I’m striving for world domination”. But he told the paper that he believed it was too late to change his name. He normally just goes by Adolf, he added.
Namibia was a German colony between 1884 and 1915 when the German army relinquished control.
The colonists wiped out most of the Herero and Nama ethnic groups between 1904 and 1908 as part of their violent occupation.
Germany’s colonial possessions were broken up following her defeat in the First World War. Through that process Namibia came under South African rule through a League of Nations mandate.
Swapo was founded in 1960 as a response to the imposition of apartheid, and the group conducted a campaign of protest and guerilla warfare.
Namibia finally gained independence in 1990, with Swapo taking the reins of government.
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