According to the latest official results released Thursday evening by the electoral commission, after counting more than 97% of the votes cast, the former single party, the MPLA, is in the lead with 51.07%.
The outgoing president, Joao Lourenço, 68, is close to a second term. In Angola, the head of the list of the winning party in the legislative elections is invested with the functions of Head of State.
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita), the first opposition party, currently has 44.05% of the vote.
“Unita does not recognize the provisional results of the electoral commission,” said the leader of the party which carried out its own count, Adalberto Costa Junior, during a press conference in Luanda. “The MPLA did not win the elections,” he added, calling for the creation of a verification commission.
The final scores had still not been announced late in the evening.
In 2017, the opposition had already challenged the results. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) retained victory with 61% of the vote against 26.67% (Unita).
Fears of fraud had been raised before the last election, with a ruling party that has control over the electoral process and the public media.
Observers from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community expressed their “concerns” on Friday, particularly about the electoral lists.
– “Comfortable” –
These are the tightest elections in the history of the MPLA-ruled country since its independence from Portugal in 1975.
“According to the first results, we have a comfortable majority,” party spokesman Rui Falcao told reporters earlier in the day. But if these results are confirmed, it would be the lowest score ever recorded by the MPLA.
The latter has already lost the two-thirds majority in Parliament, which has so far allowed it to pass laws without the support of another party, with 124 seats out of 220 so far.
Some 14.4 million voters were called to vote on Wednesday. No incidents were reported. Eight parties are in the running.
On the promise to carry out reforms, fight against poverty and curb corruption, the opposition gained ground. Adalberto Costa Junior, 60, seduces a youth who reject the controversial legacy of the former strongman at the head of the country for 38 years, José Eduardo dos Santos.
The former head of state (1979-2017) is accused of having plundered the country’s wealth for the benefit of his family and loved ones. He died last month in Barcelona. He is to be buried on Sunday in Luanda.
– “Gangrene” –
“Under dos Santos, the people have been impoverished,” denounces Gilson Leopoldo, a 26-year-old accountant from Luanda who voted for Unita “to put an end to the vicious circle of corruption that plagues the country”.
Dos Santos has made resource-rich Angola one of the continent’s top oil producers along with Nigeria. A manna that served to enrich himself while his country remained one of the poorest on the planet.
Controlling the institutions, he locked the media and put down any protest. Having become one of the longest-lived African heads of state, he has established himself outside the borders as a political pillar in the region.
Pure product of the party, Joao Lourenço succeeded him with the dolphin label. But the latter surprised by freeing itself from the system with a vigorous anti-corruption campaign. He also carried out reforms, hailed abroad, to get the economy out of its dependence on oil.
But many believe that this anti-corruption campaign has been reduced to a witch hunt against the dos Santos clan. And for a large part of the 33 million Angolans, the promises have not been kept. Nearly half of them lived on less than $1.9 a day in 2020.
