Luanda – With the start of the electoral campaign in Angola on Friday (July 22), the challenge has been launched for the contending political parties to persuading voters.
By Frederico Issuzo
The country has entered a countdown stage, with the Government suspending its powers to limit itself to “current management” and cancel the inaugurations.
In addition to suspending the inauguration of public or private works, the donation of material and financial goods to voters before election day has also been banned.
The vote is scheduled for the 24th of August, and, to date, the eight contending political parties admitted, including seven political parties and a coalition, are forced to tour the entire country, in an attempt to win the support of the voters.
Of the country’s 18 provinces, Luanda, Huíla, Benguela and Huambo remain the four largest strongholds, accounting for more than half of the total of 14.3 million registered voters.
The four provinces total 8.2 million voters, or 57.2 percent, of whom 4.6 million are in Luanda alone (37%), while the remaining three each have over one million citizens eligible to vote.
For the finance of the election campaign, the State allocated 1.1 billion kwanzas (almost USD 2.5 million ) to each candidate, a slight increase from the 1.04 billion allocated for the 2017 elections.
This amount represents an upward revision of the initial allocation of 444 million kwanzas and responds to the complaints of political parties, who had considered it “paltry”.
It is now expected that candidates roll up their sleeves to enter the field and, at the end, know how to justify the fate of the funds received.
Everything indicates that these elections, the fifth in the country's history, will be the most disputed, compared to the previous elections held in 1992, 2008, 2012 and 2017.
Amid the uncertainties about the results, there is, at least, the certainty that the undertaking will have as an inevitable outcome the triumph of continuity or alternation.
The dominant opinion admits that today there is more democratic maturity on the part of Angolans, associated with the numerical growth of the electorate, mostly young.
The expansion of voting rights to the diaspora, who are voting for the first time, reinforces the range of factors that feed expectations of greater competitiveness.
The idea of a fiercer battle than in the past is also reflected in the alliances tested by the opposition to face the ruling party, the MPLA.
An attempt was made to unify electorates from different political forces, to expand the possibilities of better performance at the polls, by building a common opposition front.
However, the possibility of creating a new agglutinating entity, which could stand on its own feet under the designation of “United Patriotic Front” (FPU), became unfeasible for legal reasons.
The alternative found was to incorporate into the list of the main opposition party, UNITA, figures of other political sensibilities, including in the position of candidate for vice president, to run as independents.
This is an option authorised by the Electoral Law, according to which candidacies can integrate citizens not registered in the respective political parties and coalitions.
Three possible scenarios
On the 24th of August, Angolans will choose a new President of the Republic, his deputy and 220 new MPs to the National Assembly (Parliament).
Conservation, the MPLA's loss of an absolute majority in Parliament and the opposition's winning a simple majority are the three possible scenarios.
The absolute majority allows its holder to “rule alone”, that is, to form his governing team without the need to negotiate or establish an alliance with other parties, as can happen in simple majorities.
But what is certain is that, against all the advantages and disadvantages of each scenario, the common denominator is that the winning party, with an absolute majority or not, will automatically elect its presidential candidate.
According to Article 109 of the Angolan Constitution, “the President of the Republic and Head Executive are elected the head of the list, by the national constituency, of the political party or coalition of political parties most voted in the context of the general elections, carried out under article 143rd and of this Constitution”.
There are, in total, eight candidates running for the presidential elections, including the outgoing Head of State, João Lourenço, and the leader of the largest opposition party, Adalberto Costa Júnior.
Florbela Catarina Malaquias is the only woman on the list and the second in the history of the Angolan electoral process, after Anália de Victória Pereira, in 1992.
The latter ran for the Presidency of the Republic along with 10 other candidates, in September 1992, under the banner of the now extinct Liberal Democratic Party (PLD), having placed 10th or penultimate, with 11,475 votes (0.29%).
This time, Florbela Malaquias, a 63-year-old lawyer, is running for the new Humanist Party of Angola (PHA), born at the end of last May.
The only one of the 13 existing political parties in the country led by a woman, the PHA is part of the eight political forces validated by the Constitutional Court (TC) to run in this year's general elections.
Her candidacy presents a list of 330 candidates for MPs, amongst effectives and substitutes, of which one for vice-president, in the person of Fernando Hombo Dinis.
The other candidacies approved by the TC are those of the MPLA, UNITA, PRS, FNLA, CASA-CE, APN and also newcomer P-NJANGO.
The first four participated in all general elections held in the country since 1992, while CASA-CE was participated in the 2012 and 2017 editions.
The Social Renewal Party (PRS) will compete with Benedito Daniel, assisted by Rui Malonga Miguel, while the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) with Nimbi a Simbi and Benjamim da Silva.
The Broad Coalition for the Salvation of Angola – Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE) comes forward with Manuel Fernandes and Alexandre Sebastião André, and the National Patriotic Alliance (APN) with Quintino Moreira and Noé Francisco Mateus.
In turn, the Nationalist Party for Justice in Angola (P-NJANGO) competes with Eduardo Samuel Jonatão “Dinho” Chingunji and António Barros.
The MPLA, the party of the President João Lourenço, chose Esperança Marta Eduardo Francisco da Costa for the vice-presidency.
UNITA hand picked Abel Chivukuvuku, who in 2012 abandoned it (UNITA) to found CASA-CE. But due to the internal conflict, Chivukuvuku was removed from the party (CASA-CE ) leadership in 2019.
Diaspora voting
For the first time, the elections in Angola will count on the participation of citizens residing abroad, 30 years after the first election in the country's history.
This turnaround comes thanks to a constitutional revision conducted in 2021, which did away with the reasons previously invoked to prevent voting abroad.
There are 14.3 million voters registered, of whom 22,560 are residing abroad, spread across 12 countries and several cities in Africa, Europe and America.
Angolans residing in South Africa (Pretoria, Cape Town and Johannesburg), Namibia (Windhoek, Oshakati and Rundu) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Matadi) are expected to vote.
Also on the African continent, Angolans residing in Congo (Brazzaville, Dolisie and Point Noire) and Zambia (Lusaka, Mongu and Solwezi) will be able to vote.
Outside the African continent, voting will be available in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and São Paulo), Germany (Berlin) and Belgium (Brussels).
Residents of France (Paris), the United Kingdom (London), Portugal (Lisbon and Porto) and the Netherlands (The Hague and Rotterdam) are also invited to take part in the process.
