Angola’s ruling party is losing its luster
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Loading... - Lara Da Silva
- 14 Feb 2023
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Discontent with the status quo led to a close 2022 election in the ex-Portuguese colony, which is still healing from civil war and facing tough economic challenges
On August 24, voters in oil-rich Angola returned the long-ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) to power, with party leader Joao Lourenco reelected to a second five-year term as president.
But the contest was the closest in electoral history between the country’s two leading parties, successors of the main anti-colonial factions who fought each other in a civil war from 1975 – when Angola gained independence from Portugal – until 2002.
The election’s runner-up party – the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), led by Adalberto Costa Junior, and its allies – got 44 percent of the vote to MPLA’s 51 percent. In the 220-seat National Assembly, Angola’s parliament, the results translate into 124 seats for MPLA and 90 for UNITA and its opposition allies, while the remaining six seats were won by three minor parties that got only 1 percent of the vote each. Read More…
