MPLA extends rule in Angola, but opposition holds some cards

Lisbon — Angola’s electoral commission on Monday declared the ruling MPLA, which has been in power for nearly five decades since independence, the winner of last week’s national election, handing President João Lourenço a second term.

The election commission gave the MPLA a 51.17% majority after all the votes were counted. Its longtime opponent, Unita, got 43.95%, its best result yet. Fewer than half of Angola’s registered voters turned out for last Wednesday’s election, though it was still the most closely fought vote yet.

The MPLA has ruled since independence from Portugal in 1975 and defeated Unita in a long civil war.

Despite losing the election, Unita has nearly doubled to 90 its seats in the 220-seat parliament, for the first time depriving the MPLA of the two-thirds majority needed to pass major reforms. The ruling party will need the backing of opposition MPs to pass legislation.

Unita leader Adalberto Costa Júnior has rejected the results, citing discrepancies between the commission’s count and the main opposition coalition’s own tally. Analysts fear any dispute could ignite mass street protests and possible violence among a poor and frustrated youth who voted for Costa Júnior.

“The international community perceives this election as being free, fair and transparent,” Lourenço told a news conference after the final results, in which he promised to be president for all Angolans.

Security

The final tally came a day after the funeral of Angola’s long-serving leader and MPLA stalwart José Eduardo dos Santos, who died in Spain in July, so security in the capital, Luanda, was tight.

The vote was peaceful, but the head of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries election observers’ mission, Jorge Carlos Fonseca, a former president of Cape Verde, told CNN Portugal on Sunday that about 2.7-million deceased people were included on the electoral roll.

He said that voter registration must improve, party delegates at polling stations did not have access to the electoral roll, and some candidates were given more airtime than others.

With a controversial new centralised vote counting system, first provisional results were announced just hours after polling stations closed, and the final tally was available a few days later.

If Costa Júnior decides to formally dispute the result, he must lodge a complaint with the electoral commission. If that is rejected, he can challenge the result in the Constitutional Court, which must rule within 72 hours. He has urged his supporters to remain calm.

Privatisation

The MPLA and Unita, formerly anticolonial guerrilla groups, were on opposing sides of a civil war until 2002, when Angolan troops killed Unita leader Jonas Savimbi.

Lourenço has pledged to press on with reforms in his second term, including the privatisation of poorly run state assets. He has also vowed to continue cleaning up corruption after investigating wealthy members of the Dos Santos family.

But his reforms have so far failed to create a fairer distribution of Angola’s vast oil wealth, which remains mostly in the hands of a few well-connected MPLA officials. More than half of Angolans live below the poverty line. 

Reuters