The South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO /ˈswɑːpoʊ/; Afrikaans: Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volks Organisasie, SWAVO; German: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former independence movement in Namibia (formerly South West Africa).

It co-opted other groups such as the South West Africa National Union (SWANU), and later in 1976 the Namibia African People's Democratic Organisation.

The leftist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), supported by Cuba and the Soviet Union, came to power.

In March 1976, the MPLA offered SWAPO bases in Angola for launching attacks against the South African military.

[13] SWAPO, and with it much of Namibia's government and administration, continues to be dominated by the Ovambo ethnic group, despite "considerable efforts to counter [that] perception".

[4] Henny Seibeb, an opposition politician from the Landless People's Movement, describes the current party ideology as liberal nationalism with traces of "dogmatism, authoritarianism, and statism".

The vice-president was Namibia's former president Hage Geingob, who was elected to that position in 2007 and reconfirmed at the SWAPO congress in December 2012, until his death on 4 February 2024.

Through Kalahari Holdings, it entered into joint ventures with several companies, most prominently the Namibian branch of MultiChoice, a private satellite TV provider, of which it owns 51%.

Kalahari Holdings has further joint ventures with Radio Energy, Africa Online, and businesses in the tourism, farming, security services and health insurance sectors.

[33] Various groups have claimed that SWAPO committed serious human rights abuses against suspected spies during the independence struggle.

Breaking the Wall of Silence (BWS) is one of the groups founded by people who were detained by SWAPO during the war and abused during interrogations.

Because of a series of successful South African raids, the SWAPO leadership believed that spies existed in the movement.