Angola: Back to the ballot

On Saturday, Angolans will begin the two-week wait for the results of the first parliamentary elections since 1992, as the country continues to consolidate the political and economic gains of peace.

Angola was torn by civil war for most of its post-independence history.  The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War brought a brief opening for peace in the early 1990s, but after the 1992 election results did not go as planned for Jonas Savimbi and his National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), he took his fighters back into the bush.  Fighting did not end until the government, tightly controlled by President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), succeeded in killing Savimbi in 2002.

Since then, the strength of the MPLA’s position has only increased:

• Rising oil production and oil prices have filled government coffers.  Some of this wealth is being invested in major infrastructure projects in the capital, Luanda, and elsewhere in the country.  Roads and rail links are being built or refurbished.  China has played a major role in this process, and the government estimates Chinese investment since 2004 at 11 billion dollars.

• Although China is a major consumer of Angolan oil, Western demand for Angola’s oil as high as ever.  As such, overt pressure for increased political and economic transparency has been muted.  Angola closed the Office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights in May, and has placed restrictions on the movement of diplomats and NGO workers outside Luanda in the run-up to the polls.

• UNITA, since 2002 transformed into a purely political opposition party, remains at a disadvantage to the MPLA.  The media is dominated by the state-controlled institutions, and independent media (print or broadcast) is rare outside of Luanda.  UNITA presents the strongest challenge in the capital, attempting to pick up support from those left behind by the economic boom.  Nevertheless, the tangible sense of improved security (after decades of intense conflict), plays to the MPLA’s favour.

Dos Santos appears confident of an MPLA victory, not only expecting to maintain his control, but perhaps expand it, to a two-thirds majority. This would allow him to pursue constitutional reform in the next parliament, and he has expressed ambitions in that direction. He has ambitions for himself, as well as his party: he is expected to stand for, and win, re-election next year.