The Angolan ruling party MPLA, in power for half a century, has narrowly won the elections, despite growing discontent among the population, but with a crumbling majority. Angolans have been fighting for months with strikes and growing support for opposition parties against a political and economic system that keeps most citizens in poverty and gives a small elite access to capital, opportunities and resources.
The MPLA won the elections held on Wednesday by 51 percent, 10 percentage points less than in 2017 and 20 points less than in 2012. In the capital Luanda, the ruling party was swept away by the opposition Unita party and the MPLA lost its two-thirds majority in parliament.
Rich country, corrupt government
Angola, with its fertile farmland and large reserves of oil and diamonds, is potentially one of the richest states on the continent. But excessive corruption, little development of the agricultural sector and less and less work for a burgeoning young population have made it a country with a deeply dissatisfied population. All power is concentrated in the presidential palace where re-elected president João Lourenço resides.
Sixty percent of the population is under 25 years of age. Those young people no longer remember how the MPLA fought for independence against the Portuguese and after 1975, under a left-wing Marxist rule, was one of the Soviet Union’s best allies. After the end of the Cold War, the country established close relations with China; it sells most of its oil to the Asian superpower.
The MPLA brought peace in 2002 after a long civil war in which it defeated rival Unita. For young people, such historical achievements on the account of the ruling party do not impress their voting behaviour: they mainly voted for Adalberto Costa Junior, the charismatic Unita leader.
Successor of Dos Santos clan
Lourenço took power in 2017 on a wave of optimism from 38-year-ruling MPLA leader José Eduardo dos Santos. A patronage network had grown around the Dos Santos family, in which his daughters and sons ran state-owned companies and enriched themselves with billions of dollars. His daughter Isabel has been called the richest woman in Africa. So unloved had Dos Santos become that Lourenço immediately distanced himself from his predecessor and launched an anti-corruption campaign. This initially earned him a lot of popularity, as did his promises of economic reform, privatization programs, freedom of the press and competent management.
But Lourenço’s fight against corruption turned out to be mainly directed against his predecessor: even more than before, he concentrated power in the presidential palace with new patronage networks and cracked down on critics. With the fall in oil prices due to corona, the economy entered crisis and, under the pressure of a grim social situation, Angolans showed increasing distaste for the MPLA in these elections. Unita called the results fraudulent on Friday.
Read also this profile of Isabel dos Santos