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Angola General Elections 2022 Commence
Africa | Angola August 24, 2022
Photo: Downtown Luanda, Angola
Polling stations in Angola opened on August 24, 2022, for about 14 million voters to cast their votes in the country’s general elections. The voters are choosing their next-president and members of National Assembly/Parliament. The incumbent President João Lourenco is seeking his second and last term in office.
There is no direct presidential election in Angola. According to country’s 2010 Constitution, the presidential nominee of the political party that wins most votes in the general election becomes the next president.
Within the above context, five political parties are contesting for the presidential position and parliamentary seats. The parties and their presidential nominees are as thus.
MPLA (Presidential nominee João Lourenco)
UNITA (Presidential nominee Adalberto Costa Júnior)
CASA-CE (Presidential nominee Manuel Fernandes)
PRS (Presidential nominee Eduardo Kuangana)
FNLA (Presidential nominee Ngola Kabangu)
Political analysts in the region have predicted that the main fight at the ballot place will be between the ruling MPLA party and its traditional arch-rival UNITA party, and that the fight will be a close one.
MPLA has been in power since Angola got its independence from Portugal in 1975, and UNITA has been the main opposition since then. While MPLA has won previous general elections rather easily, things may not be the same on this occasion. That is partly because its performance over the decades it has been in power leaves much to be desired. Particularly, MPLA is said to have significantly lost its popularity because of governance failures that have led Angola to become one of most corrupt and non-inclusive countries in Africa, with majority of its populace living under $2 per day. The latter is despite Angola having been making massive revenues from extraction and export of its vast oil reserves.
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