On 5 September 2008 Angola held its first election since its protracted conflict was put to an end in April 2002. MPLA's victory in the 1992 legislative elections was contested by UNITA and the subsequent crisis resulted in the resumption of the civil war. This historical precedent triggered a degree apprehension vis-à-vis the electoral process amongst most Angolans. The organisation of the 2008 legislative elections was managed by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) and the Inter-Ministerial Commission for Election Process. Both bodies were largely made up of elements of the ruling party albeit the CNE had some representatives from opposition parties. The government developed a sophisticated and costly electoral system including electoral materials produced by the multinational company INDRA based in Spain.
The organisation of the elections began in 2006. The voter registration process was a paramount undertaking due to the absence of a census list of the Angolan population since 1975. The survey was carried out by several registration brigades and was observed by party agents; as a result over 8 million Angolans were registered. Nonetheless, the process was not absent of controversy since the opposition parties denounced that the traditional authorities, the so-called Sobas, in connivance with the barrios (neighbourhood) coordinators collected voters ID cards in order to elaborate a parallel register list of voters. According to the main opposition party UNITA, this was a strategy to coerce villagers into voting for MPLA. In addition, UNITA accused the CNE of recruiting polling staff members mainly amongst members of MPLA. Nevertheless, these alleged irregularities did not outweigh opposition parties’ eagerness to participate in the electoral process. In addition, the government put in place a program to induce civilian disarmament for the purpose of fostering people's confidence in a peaceful electoral outcome.
Since May 2008 MPLA and UNITA ran a pre-election campaign leading up to the electoral campaign which started officially on 7 August 2008. According to electoral law, the 14 parties that were registered were to receive $1.1 million each for the electoral campaign three months before E-day. However, these state funds were only distributed to the political parties at the beginning of August. Opposition parties had meagre private means of financing the campaign and lacked propaganda materials and even means of transport to reach their constituencies. Hence, opposition parties mainly conducted a door to door campaign. Meanwhile, MPLA was accused by the opposition parties of using state resources for its campaign (see EU Election Observation Mission to the Republic of Angola 2008 Preliminary Statement1). MPLA used a wide range of means of transport (small airplanes, school buses, 4x4 vehicles, motorbikes, bikes, etc.) and displayed generous campaign resources including the distribution of a wide range of electoral materials. In addition, MPLA conducted a very well orchestrated electoral propaganda campaign in the national mass media, namely the National Angolan Radio (RPA), the National Angolan TV (TPA) and the governmental Jornal de Angola. Media opposition such as the weekly journal O Novo Jornal enjoyed limited distribution and the church run Radio Igreja could only be broadcasted in Luanda. The opposition parties struggled to get their message across to the population in the provinces due to limited means and poor organisational planning in some cases.
The MPLA campaign focused on the government's role in sustaining 6 years of peace, social progress and economic development. José Eduardo Dos Santos, MPLA's president and Angola's Head of State for the last 30 years was described in mass meetings and rallies as a successful peacemaker. Governmental achievements made recurrently the headlines of national news programs i.e. inauguration of hospitals, schools, running water plants, infrastructures or new branches of the state-owned network of supermarkets nosso super. The Angolan media generously publicised China's leading role in re-building the country's infrastructures in exchange for oil supplies.
In recent years, the Angolan economy has had an annual real growth rate over 15%, its inflation stays in double digits and revenues result mainly from the booming oil industry and the extraction of minerals and diamonds. In 2008 Angola became Africa's largest oil producer overtaking Nigeria.2 The Angolan Finance minister José Pedro de Morais received the prize of Best African Finance Minister in 2007 from the Financial Times magazine The Banker and he was also recently nominated among the Personalities of the Year by the Foreign Direct Investment Magazine (FDIM). The country attracts international investment and duly pays back its foreign debt to international creditors. Angolan companies linked to the Government of Angola are also striving to take control of the banking sector traditionally dominated by Portuguese firms.3
The booming economy has been cleverly exploited by MPLA campaigners as being the engine for social progress to address deficits in health, education, clean water, electricity and infrastructures. Despite MPLA's optimistic vision, Angola is still amongst the world's least developed nations and occupies the 162nd position in the 2007–2008 UNDP development index rankings. Individuals closely connected to the MPLA leadership manage the main sources of the country's capitalist development such us oil, construction, telecommunications and hotel industries whilst most Angolans live in precarious conditions, in shanty towns or in small villages in the rural countryside, below minimum hygiene standards, often without easy access to clean water resulting in outbreaks of contagious diseases such as cholera and chronic diarrhoea among children who suffer also from nutritional disorders. Malaria remains the most common cause of infant mortality. Despite a widespread social perception of corruption amongst certain elements of the ruling party, MPLA's landslide victory in the elections was determined by the Angolan people's desire to maintain peace and their expectations on the development prospects resulting from country's emerging role in the energy sector.
In the era of globalisation, MPLA is the only game in town. Since pre-campaign-ing began, significant members of UNITA: some of them concerned about maintaining their positions as administrators of the current Government of National Unity: defected from UNITA and subsequently expressed their support to MPLA. Their move to the ruling party was widely publicised by state media on E-day week. Despite questions raised on the confusion between state structures and the MPLA party, elections have been deemed by all international observation missions as transparent, and all opposition parties have accepted the results, whilst allegations of vote rigging have almost been non-existent. Seemingly, international observers highlighted the process was hampered to some extent by organisational pitfalls such as delays in the distribution of materials which then obliged many polling stations to re-open in Luanda on E-day + 1, delays in the accreditation of opposition party observers and inconsistencies in the interpretation of counting procedures (see EU Election Observation Mission to the Republic of Angola 2008 Preliminary Statement 4).
MPLA obtained a landslide victory receiving 81% of the votes. UNITA and PRS received respectively 10% and 3% of the votes. UNITA's resounding defeat has been aggravated by its sharply declining influence in its traditional strongholds. On the other hand, PRS slightly improved its 1992 results by focusing its campaign on the promotion of federalism, i.e. provincial management of revenues as the recipe to address corruption and shorten the gap between a rich urban elite based in Luanda and pov-erty-stricken peasants living in the provinces; significantly, PRS obtained over 40% of the votes casted in diamond-rich province of Lunda Sul.
Needless to emphasise that MPLA's main challenge ahead is to maintain these excellent electoral results; the electorate gave credit to the leadership who managed to sustain 6 years of peace but in future contests the government's capacity to deliver socio-economic development will be scrutinised more closely. These elections have been conducted in a peaceful and transparent manner and Angola has taken a step forward towards political stability; as in 1992, most Angolans voted for MPLA but the coun-try's path towards development could benefit from governmental efforts to enable constructive criticism in the public arena. Opposition parties and independent civil society organisations are irreplaceable assets in the priceless business of sustaining Angola's hard-won peace.
| Angola Election: 2008: Final Results | |
|---|---|
| MPLA | 81.64% |
| UNITA | 10.39% |
| PRS | 3.17% |
| ND | 1.20% |
| FNLA | 1.11% |
| PDP-ANA | 0.51% |
| PLD | 0.33% |
| AD | 0.29% |
| FpD | 0.27% |
| PADEPA | 0.27% |
| PAJOCA | 0.24% |
| PRD | 0.22% |
| PPE | 0.19% |
| FOFAC | 0.17% |
| The Full Cabinet List |
|---|
| President: José Eduardo dos Santos |
| Prime Minister: António Paulo Kassoma |
| Minister of National Defence: Kundi Paihama |
| Minister of Interior: Roberto Leal Ramos Monteiro |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs: Assunção Afonso dos Anjos |
| Minister of Economy: Manuel Nunes Júnior |
| Minister of Territory Administartion: Virgílio Ferreira de Fontes Pereira |
| Minister of Public Administration, Employment and Social Security: António Domingos Pitra Costa Neto |
| Minister of Justice: Guilhermina Contreiras da Costa Prata |
| Minister of Finance: Eduardo Leopoldo Severin de Morais |
| Minister of Planning: Ana Afonso Dias Lourenço |
| Minister of Commerce: Maria Idalina de Oliveira Valente |
| Minister of Hotel and Tourism: Pedro Mutindi |
| Minister of Agriculture: Afonso Pedro Canga |
| Minister of Fisheries: Salamão José Luete Chiribimbi |
| Minister of Industry: Joaquim Duarte da Costa David |
| Minister of Oil: José Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos |
| Minister of Geology and Mining: Makenda Ambroise |
| Minister of Environment: Maria de F´tima Monteiro Jardim |
| Minister of Science and Technology: Maria Cândida Teixeira |
| Minister of Urbanisation and Housing: Diakumpuna Sita José |
| Minister of Public Works: Francisco Higino Lopes Carneiro |
| Minister of Transport: Augusto da Silva Tom´s |
| Minister of Energy: Emanuela Afonso Viera Lopes |
| Minister of Telecommunication and Informa-tion Technology: José Carvalho da Rocha |
| Minister of Health: José Viera Dias Van-Dúnen |
| Minister of Education: António Buriti da Silva Neto |
| Minister of Culture: Rosa Maria Martins da Cruz e Silva |
| Minister of Social Welfare: João Baptista Kussumua |
| Minister of Family & Women Promotion: Genoveva da Conceição Lino |
| Minister of Former Combatants and War Veterans: Pedro José Van-Dúnen |
| Minister of Youth and Sports: Gonçalves Manuel Muandumba |
| Minister of Social Communication: Manuel António Rabelais |
| Minister without portfolio: António Bento Bembe |
| Minister without portfolio: Francisca de F´tima do Espírito Santo de Carvalho Almeida |
| Secretary of State for Rural Development: Maria Filomena de F´tima Lobão Telo Delgado |
| Secretary of State for Higher Education: Adão Gaspar Pereira do Nascimento |