A local election in Namibia has once again captured global curiosity, and the reason is printed right on the ballot paper: Adolf Hitler Uunona is poised to retain his municipal council seat.
The name may evoke the darkest chapters of world history, but the man carrying it is more concerned with boreholes, gravel roads and school upgrades than world domination.
Adolf Hitler Uunona, who represents the Ompundja constituency in the northern Oshana region, has long been a popular figure.
Ompundja is a dusty farming area with fewer than 3,000 registered voters, yet it enjoys an unusual degree of international name recognition thanks to its councillor.
A loyal member of the ruling South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) party, Uunona first won the seat in 2004 and has gone on to win in 2010, 2015 and 2020.
In his last outing he secured 85 per cent of the vote, proving that voters here care far more about service delivery than unsettling historical echoes.
Despite sharing his name with the German dictator who led his country into World War II and presided over the Holocaust, Uunona insists he has nothing in common with that Adolf.
In fact, the similarity ends with the ink on his birth certificate. The councillor says the name was given by his father, who did not understand its association with the dictator.
Speaking to German newspaper Bild in 2020, he said his father "probably didn't understand what Adolf Hitler stood for. As a child, I saw it as a totally normal name. Only as I grew up did I understand this man wanted to conquer the whole world. I have nothing to do with any of these things."
Locals, it seems, agree. Names like Adolf are not unusual in Namibia, which was colonised by Germany from 1884 to 1915 when it was still known as South West Africa.
Around Ompundja, nobody thinks twice about it. At home, his wife calls him Adolf. In public, he drops the "Hitler" part but says he has no intention of changing his name now. "It's on all my official documents. It's too late for that," he explained.
When the world took sudden interest in his 2020 victory, Uunona made it clear he would rather be judged by potholes filled than headlines generated.
Speaking to AFP, he asked, “I am not going to entertain the conversation, there is no reason we should be sitting here, having an entire conversation about my name. You really want us to have an entire conversation about my name? How will that make Namibia a better country, how will it contribute to the development of our country?”
To the people of Ompundja, he is just “Councillor Adolf” the man who gets the boreholes working, pushes for gravel roads and battles tirelessly for better schools.
If anything, his career stands as a reminder that a name may carry history but it does not define character. And in this remote corner of Namibia, the only conquest on Adolf Uunona’s mind today is another landslide win at the polls.
