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Angola: Voters await election results
A voter casts his ballot at a voting station in Luanda, Angola. PHOTO/AP
Angola tallied ballots Saturday from its elections, expected to keep President Jose Eduardo dos Santos party in power.
The National Electoral Commission said initial results would be announced later Saturday, but the people of Angola desperate for news on the elections swamped newspaper vendors, elbowing each other to grab a copy of the official Jornal de Angola.
“Many people want to buy the newspaper. Until now, we don’t have the results, and everyone wants the results,” said Luciano Calongo, 31, as he tussled in a crowd to get a copy off a motorcycle deliveryman in downtown Luanda.
Aside from the jostling around newspaper vendors, the normally vibrant capital Luanda was strangely quiet for a second day. Friday was declared a national holiday for the elections, and shops remained shuttered on Saturday while streets notorious for gridlock were mostly empty.
Angola State television repeated images of people around the country casting ballots at more than 10,000 schools that closed for a month to allow their transformation into polling stations.
“Voting proceeded in an orderly manner across the national territory,” proclaimed the front page of the government mouthpiece Jornal de Angola.
Counting began shortly after polls closed Friday, but the process will take several days as results are compiled from across the large southern African nation, where some returns have to be physically transported from remote regions.
The ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in power since independence from Portugal in 1975, took 81 percent of the vote in the last elections in 2008, the first ballot held after the 27-year civil war ended in 2002.
The MPLA is widely expected to win a majority of the 220 seats in parliament. The leader of the winning party will become president, making Dos Santos all but certain to secure another five-year term.
Dos Santos has transformed governed Angola from a war ravaged nation through an oil boom that over the last decade into one of the world’s fastest growing economies.
His administration has ploughed billions of dollars into rebuilding the nation with new roads, schools, bridges and dams rising up from the ruins.
Public health and incomes have improved, however, a significant number of Angolans still live in poverty.
Former rebel movment, now the main opposition party – Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) accuses Dos Santos of using his power and money to strengthen his power, and has campaigned promising a better democracy.
UNITA leader Isaias Samakuva has lambasted the organization of the elections, citing worries about accreditation of observers and the failure to make a public audit of the 9.7 million names on the voter roll.
With only 10 percent of votes in the last poll, UNITA needs a strong showing to prove it remains relevant, particularly after a bruising split that saw a top party official form the new Casa party with a high-profile defector from the MPLA.
Casa has made in-roads among young voters with promises of better jobs and homes, but it is unclear of the party’s reach since its creation in April.
Former Cape Verde president Pedro Verona Pires, chief of the African Union’s observer team, described the poll’s organization as “satisfactory” and said that initial reports showed the voting had proceeded well.
Copyright 2012 AFP