Clara Gowases is a Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

n teacher and politician. Gowases was elected the chairperson of the Republic Party

Republican Party (Namibia)

The Republican Party was a political party in Namibia, based among the white minority. Henk Mudge is its President and its sole representative in the National Assembly. Prior to the 2004 parliamentary election, the Republican Party was part of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance . It was revived as...

 in September 2009 and subsequently listed second on the party's electoral list for the 2009 general election. Gowases missed out on being elected to the NA as the party only won a single seat. In the February 2010 regional elections

Namibian local and regional elections, 2010

Namibia held elections for their local and regional councils on 26 and 27 November 2010. The terms of regional councillors and local authority representatives were originally set to expire in 2009...

, Gowases ran to represent Windhoek Rural

Windhoek Rural

Windhoek Rural is a constituency in the Khomas Region of Namibia. its population is 20,212. This constituency contains all settlements in the Khomas Region that are outside the city of Windhoek, among them:...

 in the Regional Council of Khomas Region

Khomas Region

Khomas is one of the thirteen regions of Namibia. It contains the capital city Windhoek and provides for this reason superior transportation infrastructure. It has well-developed economical, financial, and trade sectors. Khomas Region occupies 4.5% of the land area of Namibia but has the highest...

 and was narrowly defeated by SWAPO's Frederick Arie. In March 2011, party president and National Assembly member Henk Mudge

Henk Mudge

Henk Mudge is a Namibian former politician. He is the former President of the Republican Party and formerly the party's only member in the National Assembly. He was replaced in the National Assembly by Clara Gowases....

 resigned and Gowases replaced him. She is a teacher by profession.

In her inaugural speech to the National Assembly, Gowases criticized the SWAPO-led government for allegedly favoring construction firms from China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

over neighboring South African firms. She also criticized government-affiliated trade unions for not criticizing Chinese firms for abuses.