Members of Angola’s main opposition party streamed into a conference hall on Thursday to cast ballots in a leadership race overshadowed by the ghost of Jonas Savimbi, the guerrilla leader who founded the movement.
Larger-than-life images of Savimbi, killed by Angolan government troops in 2002, greeted more than 1 000 delegates of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) who gathered in the town of Viana, 20km outside Luanda.
”A Life For Angola and For Angolans,” read a banner beneath an oversized black-and-white head photo of Savimbi, dwarfing the eight transparent ballot boxes and booths that will be used in the voting on Thursday evening.
The two candidates vying to lead the party, incumbent Isaias Samakuva and challenger Abel Chivukuvuku, both have claimed to be ”Savimbistas” of sorts, an acknowledgment of the influence the charismatic warrior and politician exerts from the grave.
”Savimbi, even for the youth, has become a kind of myth. He is unmissable. He is omnipresent,” Adalberto de Costa Jr, the party’s information secretary, told Reuters shortly before the voting was to begin.
”Savimbi was a patriot and extremely disciplined … people are looking for inspiration.”
But to some observers and more than a few supporters it is Unita that is in need of inspiration as the party prepares to do battle against the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in historic elections set for 2008 and 2009.
The country has not held a national election since a disastrous 1992 presidential poll, which was aborted after a first round and saw the Savimbi-led Unita resume its stop-start 27-year bush war against the government.
An estimated seven million people in the oil-rich former Portuguese colony are expected to vote in legislative elections next year and the presidential ballot in 2009. The polls have been postponed several times by the MPLA.
Some observers believe Unita will choose to soft-peddle its Savimbi roots — he is seen as a freedom fighter by some Angolans but a war criminal by many others — as it nears the elections.
”The message is being played to their base — they will probably shift to something more palatable to the national electorate as the country moves toward elections,” a Western diplomat in Angola said.
A failure to do so could, according to political analysts as well as some party activists, see Unita fall well short of unseating the MPLA in the elections and even give up ground to other smaller opposition parties.
Whoever wins the Unita leadership contest will face an uphill struggle in unseating the MPLA next year and its presidential candidate in 2009. The ruling party has a financial advantage and also controls a large swath of the media.
Angola’s powerful President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled the country since 1979, is expected to run for another term in 2009. – Reuters