A 20-strong alliance of opposition parties denounced on Friday what they called the slow rate of preparations for staging Angola’s first elections since the end of the civil war four years ago.
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, in power since 1979, has pledged to stage the historic ballot before the end of next year but members of the Civilian Opposition Parties bloc and six other opposition factions said the National Elections Commission (NEC) is doing to little to prepare for the vote.
”We are worried about the slowness, repeated delays and the lack of preparations for the elections,” they said in the joint statement.
The communique also called on the NEC to arrange a meeting with the opposition by the end of next week to draw up a progress list towards the vote.
The opposition alliance, which includes the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) former rebel army, also asked why other African states had managed to organise elections despite facing comparable obstacles.
”Other people on the continent have managed to organise elections despite the difficulties which are understood by everyone and we cannot understand why Angola cannot do the same,” it said.
Dos Santos, who has yet to formally confirm that he will seek a fresh mandate, said in May that the vote would take place either in late 2006 or in 2007.
The presidential and legislative elections will be the first since the end of the 1975 to 2002 war in the former Portuguese colony, which is now sub-Saharan Africa’s second biggest oil producer after Nigeria.
Dos Santos’s ruling Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has been in power since the country achieved independence from Portugal in 1975.
The MPLA signed a peace deal in 2002 with Unita, which has turned from rebel army into the main opposition political party.
Unita leader Isaias Samakuva has announced plans to run for the presidency.
Angola is rebuilding following the war that claimed 500 000 lives, displaced another half a million and caused, according to Dos Santos, about $40-billion in economic damage. — Sapa-AFP