Angola has rolled out a massive voter-registration drive ahead of its first elections since 1992, but questions remain over when the long-awaited polls will take place in the oil-rich nation recovering from civil war.
President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been at the helm of the ruling MPLA for 27 years, was the first of Angola’s 13-million people to register on Wednesday for elections that could take place as early as next year.
About 7,5-million of Angola’s 13-million people are thought to be eligible voters who are required to register, according to the National Electoral Commission.
Angola’s state media has been encouraging people to sign up with frequent radio spots and posters have been put up in urban areas to push turnout higher.
”Registration is an important step and a clear indicator that government is going to hold elections,” MPLA spokesperson Kwata Kanawa said on Thursday. ”People must know that if they don’t register, they won’t be able to take part.”
Registration is expected to be completed in June 2007, raising the possibility that elections could take place next year after being delayed several times.
But a firm date for the ballot has yet to be proposed by the president, fuelling concerns from the country’s former rebels, Unita, now Angola’s largest opposition party after laying down their weapons in 2002 after a devastating 27-year civil war.
”We’ve started the registration process now. But after that, what are we going to do? Are we going to sit around and just look at the sky?” the president of Unita’s parliamentary group Alcides Sakala asked. ”We need to have a clear timetable.”
The registration process involves kits that include cameras, computers, generators, printers and scanners in what officials hope will put Angola’s electoral process on a par with those in developed nations.
Challenges aplenty
Angola is now sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer after Nigeria.
But the country’s patchy infrastructure and far-flung communities will pose serious challenges and some observers believe an election date will be announced only after registration has advanced significantly.
”It seems like it’s a ‘let’s wait and see’, so we don’t get egg on our faces with elections getting delayed. They’ve got the example of the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] next door where elections got delayed for over two years,” said Barbara Smith, elections programme officer for the United States National Democratic Institute, a non-governmental organisation.
”But that caution doesn’t give sufficient room for political parties and civil society to plan,” she said.
Other unresolved questions include whether presidential and legislative elections will take place simultaneously, while speculation over Dos Santos’s poor health has raised uncertainty over whether he will be the MPLA candidate.
There is no sign of an alternative, and even some of his adversaries are convinced Dos Santos is ready to fight another round to keep the formerly Marxist MPLA in power.
”I know I have to register but I’m definitely not going to vote,” said one unemployed 25-year-old. ”I know the MPLA is going to win so my vote in this country counts for nothing. The MPLA has all the experience, all the power. They are the ones to do and undo everything.” — Reuters