Angolans are voting in an election in which the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) faces the most significant challenge from opposition parties for decades.
More than 14 million people in the oil and diamond rich country are eligible to vote, with a high turnout likely after polls showed the main opposition party closer to victory than many expected.
Observers have described the election as an “existential moment” for Angola, and a test for democracy across a swath of sub-Saharan Africa.
The MPLA has been in power since Angola declared independence from Portugal in 1975, but discontent has now reached a point where the party may have to resort to fraud to secure another five years in power through rigging and repression, experts say.
The party is led by João Lourenço, a former defence minister, who won power in 2017 after being handpicked as successor to José Eduardo dos Santos, whose authoritarian rule lasted 38 years.
“The MPLA is not so confident,” said David Boio, a respected sociologist. “There are many polls that show the results might not be so good for them. It’s very close and we are talking about an authoritarian regime that will not take any risks.”
Though Lourenço, 68, has tried to boost economic growth and pay off vast debts, he has failed to improve the lives of most Angolans. Critics say a high profile anti-corruption drive targeted only potentially powerful enemies – such as Isabel dos Santos, the hugely wealthy daughter of the former president – while Amnesty International has described “an unprecedented crackdown on human rights, including unlawful killings and arbitrary arrests”.
“I hope this election brings a bit of change because the country is not good as it is,” Goncalo Junior Maneco, a 25-year-old electrician, told Reuters as he waited to vote at a polling station in the capital, Luanda.
Lourenço voted at the same polling station surrounded by heavy security. “We have just exercised our right to vote. It’s fast and simple. We advise all eligible citizens to do the same. In the end, we will all win, democracy wins and Angola wins,” he told reporters.
As elsewhere in Africa, a key factor in Angola is the youth of the population. More than 60% is under 24.
Lourenço’s principal rival is Adalberto Costa Júnior of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita). Though only eight years younger than the incumbent, Costa Júnior has tried to position himself as a representative of the young, civil society and all those who have lost out under the years of MPLA rule.
Thousands of supporters – mainly young people – turned out at a rally in a densely populated and impoverished district of Luanda on Monday to show support for Costa Júnior.
“You’re showing that Angola has a fighting spirit,” Costa Júnior told the enthusiastic crowd. “Unita’s mandate represents the realisation of a dream, the realisation of the youths’ goals.”
Unita were once the proxies of the west, funded and armed by the US and its allies, but eventually losing the civil war to the MPLA, which was backed by the USSR and Cuba. Under Costa Júnior, the party has shifted to the centre but is still seen as pro-western and pro-business, contrasting with the MPLA with its Socialist ideological background and continuing links with Russia.
The Angolan electoral commission has promised a fair election and there are hundreds of international observers to monitor the process.
Boio said Costa Júnior would face a dilemma after the poll. After promising that he would call out fraud, the Unita leader will be expected to act. He will also need to channel the anger of many voters, particularly the younger cohorts. An attempt to use the courts or other institutions is unlikely to succeed, but the government has made clear it will move fast to shut down any protests and would blame Unita for any disorder.
“In the long run it will be very difficult for the MPLA to stay in power. They can win tomorrow, but the only real option for the government is more and more repression and the situation of the country will get worse,” Boio said.
Eric Humphery-Smith, senior Africa analyst at consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft, said tensions would peak when results are announced in two weeks’ time.
“We expect a heavy handed response to any protests, which would sully president Lourenço’s already chequered human rights record. One black mark on his record is that he continues to stymie probes into human rights violations carried out during Angola’s messy civil war,” Humphery-Smith said.
