ANGOLAN ELECTION
Unita defends its right to protest, but vows no return to war
Lisbon/ Luanda — Angola’s main opposition party repeated its threat to hold street protests if it deems this week’s elections unfair, but said there was no way the vote could lead to a return to conflict in the oil-producing nation. "People are being told that if they vote for Unita there will be war," the leader of the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola, Isaias Samakuva, said at his party’s last campaign gathering in the capital, Luanda, before Wednesday’s vote. "Not here. We’ve seen what war is. Are you crazy or what?" Unita is a former rebel group that fought the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the 27-year civil war that ended in 2002. Samakuva, 71, came to head the party a year later and has lost general elections to the MPLA in 2008 and 2012. This week’s election will be Angola’s first change in leadership in almost four decades, after President Jose Eduardo dos Santos said he would step down. The MPLA’s candidate, Defence Minis...
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