Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos said on Monday that conditions for a general election would be ripe within two years.
”We are in the process of creating conditions such as the discussion of the draft constitution which will be followed by a consultation of the people,” he told reporters.
”There is also almost a consensus for 2005 as the date for elections. We think that within 24 months all this work will be completed,” he added.
He was speaking after a meeting with visiting Portugese Prime Minister Manuel Durao Barroso.
The terms of office of both dos Santos and of the parliament expired in 1996, four years after elections in 1992.
The civil war, which came to an end in April 2002, derailed the electoral process in the southwest African country, and no date has been fixed for the next general election.
Angolan opposition politicians earlier accused Durao Barroso of supporting an ”illegitimate” regime by making an official visit to Luanda, the capital of the former Portuguse colony. – Sapa-AFP