Angola’s ruling MPLA party said it was on track to win a two-thirds parliamentary majority, based on its own numbers, as votes were still being tallied ahead of an expected release of official results later on Thursday.
Angola, home to sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest economy, held a smooth national election on Wednesday with the MPLA’s former defence minister Joao Lourenco expected to be voted in as the OPEC-member’s first new president for 38 years.
In Angola, political parties are allowed to observe the elections by posting party members at every polling station and by assimilating results, the parties attempt to foretell the election outcome.
The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) calculated that after 5 million votes had been checked it was on course for a two-thirds majority, João Martins, MPLA secretary for political and electoral affairs, told reporters.
“We can affirm that the future president will be comrade João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço,” Martins said.
However, the main opposition, National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), said it had counted 2 million votes and the MPLA had won 47.6 percent and UNITA 40.2 percent. There were 9 million Angolans registered to vote.
“Looking at the trend, the MPLA won’t have a majority at all,” UNITA’s parliamentary head Adalberto Costa Júnior told Reuters.
Should the MPLA win, Lourenço, a quiet 63-year-old more used to army barracks and the closed doors of party politics than the public spotlight, would replace veteran leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos. He will remain as head of the party, however, giving him potentially sweeping powers over decision-making.
Reuters
