Angola’s ruling party on Thursday unveiled 14 preconditions for upcoming presidential and general elections, saying these had to be fulfilled before any ballot was held in the war-scarred country.
”These are preconditions. It does not suffice if some people say they want elections tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,” Norberto dos Santos, the information secretary of the ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, told a news conference.
”We have to first fulfil these conditions and then prepare for the elections,” he said.
Among the preconditions is parliamentary approval of a new Constitution for the Southern African nation that is being put in place as well as a law relating to a new census of voters and a proposed watchdog to oversee the upcoming polls.
Dos Santos said a check by the Angolan government and international organisations to see if these conditions have been fulfilled will probably take place in the second half of 2005.
He said the date of the elections will be announced between three and six months before the ballot is held.
The former rebel National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita), now the main opposition group, has recently made repeated calls for the speedy announcement of the election dates.
Unita soldiers and government troops in April 2002 ended a civil war that had raged almost continuously since before oil-rich Angola’s independence from Portugal in 1975. — Sapa-AFP