Only in 2020: A candidate named Adolf Hitler Uunona won a local election in Namibia with 85% of the vote, The Washington Post reported.
Uunona was elected as a councilor in the Ompundja Constituency, the newspaper reported. According to the Electoral Commission of Namibia, Uunona ran as a candidate for the South West Africa People’s Organization, also known as the SWAPO party; He collected 1,196 votes in the election, which was held last month.
According to The Hill, Uunona denied having any ideological common ground with the Nazi dictator, telling the German newspaper Bild, “That I have this name doesn’t mean that I want to subjugate Oshana now -- it doesn’t mean that I’m striving for world domination!”
RESULTS: Uunona Adolf Hitler of the SWAPO party is the duly elected councilor of the Ompundja Constituency.#NamVotes2020 #NamibiaVotes2020 #EagleFM pic.twitter.com/6ZQqaNctZx
— Eagle FM Namibia (@EagleFMNam) November 26, 2020
On the official candidates list, Uunona’s middle name was reduced to an initial, the Post reported. The document read “Adolf H. Uunona,” but the results page listed his full name.
Namibia is a former German colony. The Germans yielded rule of the southwestern African nation in 1915, 18 years before Hitler came to power in Germany. The country was under South African rule during World War II and gained its independence in 1990.
Namibia’s official language is English, but German is also spoken there, The Hill reported. Several towns have German names, including Lüderitz, Mariental and Helmeringhausen.
In his interview with Bild, Uunona said that his father had named him after the dictator but “probably didn’t understand what Adolf Hitler stood for.” His wife, he said, calls him Adolf, the Post reported.
“It was a completely normal name for me as a child,” Uunona told Bild. “It wasn’t until I was growing up that I realized: This man wanted to subjugate the whole world. I have nothing to do with any of these things.”
The Regional Council Election Results in Oshana Region. 👇 👇 #NamVotes2020 pic.twitter.com/K7vpTbbiW0
— Electoral Commission of Namibia (@ECN_Namibia) November 27, 2020
Uunona is not the first candidate overseas to spark worldwide interest because of his name.
In November, Yutaka Umeda, a mayor in a small Japanese town, became a social media darling after the result of the American presidential election, the Post reported.
Under the Japanese writing system, Umeda’s name can also be pronounced “Jo Baiden,” the newspaper reported.
Cox Media Group
