Angola: Voters go to the polls tomorrow to elect new president

Angola goes to the polls, tomorrow – August 23 – and the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) is fielding a candidate to replace the out-going president José Eduardo dos Santos.

Joao Lourenço, who was earlier this year nominated by the MPLA to run for president, will face the leader of the opposition’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Isaias Samakuva.

UNITA won just 18 percent in the last election in 2012 and the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) won a landslide 72 percent.

With Angola in the midst of an economic crisis caused by a fall in oil prices, the opposition is hoping to improve its tally.
Samakuva has said he is willing to form a coalition government with other opposition parties after elections next Wednesday if MPLA loses power for the first time since independence in 1975.

Dos Santos led an oil-backed economic boom and the reconstruction of infrastructure devastated by a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002.
Then the country slipped into recession last year with the economy contracting 3.6 percent.

UNITA is campaigning on a broad platform for change, promising to increase spending on education and health, combat corruption and open the economy to more investment.