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Angola

Opposition Unita acknowledges election defeat

Article published on the 2008-09-09 Latest update 2008-09-09 11:51 TU

Counting the votes in Luanda(Photo: AFP)

Counting the votes in Luanda
(Photo: AFP)

Angola's largest opposition party has accepted the results of last weekend's parliamentary elections. Unita congratulated President José Eduardo dos Santos' Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) on winning the country's first elections in 16 years. The MPLA won a sweeping victory in the historic vote.

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With about 80 per cent of votes counted, the MPLA have 82 per cent while the former rebel movement Union for the Total Independence of Angola won about ten per cent.

"After about 80 per cent of valid votes have been counted, despite all that has happened, the leadership of Unita accepts the results of the elections," said Unita president Isaisa Samakuva.

Unita on Monday contested irregularities in the election, notably in Luanda, where some polling stations were not open, and ballot papers and voter lists were not available.

But the national electoral commission rejected Unita's demand for the election to be rerun in the capital Luanda, saying there was no evidence of fraud.

African Union monitors said the vote was "free and fair".

"The elections were transparent ... people voted freely and we have not seen any violence nor intimidation during the campaign," said Luisa Morgan, chief of the European Union observer mission for the Angolan elections.

"What this set of elections has done is to continue and guarantee the peace process," EU observer Richard Howitt told RFI. "Europe welcomes the peaceful nature of the elections.  But that doesn't mean they've been fully democratic elections."

EU Richard Howitt

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09/09/2008 by Daniel Finnan

"The MPLA is reaping the benefit of the many reconstruction projects it has launched across the country, and its overwhelming dominance in the media," Vicente Pinto De Andrade, an economics professor who will stand as an independent in next year's presidential elections, told RFI's French service. 

Unita is paying the price of internal dissent, he added.

Angola's economy is booming, thanks largely to its oil and diamond wealth. However most of the population lives in poverty, earning less than two dollars a day.