Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, in a rare public speech on Wednesday, promised a government shake-up if his ruling Popular Liberation Movement of Angola (MPLA) wins Friday’s landmark elections in Africa’s biggest oil producer.
Addressing hundreds of thousands of supporters at a colourful final election rally in the capital, Luanda, the veteran president promised that heads would roll within his government in a post-election purge of his Cabinet.
”The opposition is campaigning for change. For them, change means pushing the MPLA out of power, but that won’t happen,” he told the cheering crowd.
”For us, change does not necessarily come about by a change of party [in power]. To change public policies that haven’t worked, we must change the mentality of people who place their own interests before the general interests.
”We must change the members of the team who are bad,” he said, in a speech that appeared to acknowledge that his government had failed to distribute massive oil wealth to the country’s millions of poor.
Eduardo dos Santos, seen by many Angolans as a reclusive figure, was making his first speech to an election rally, just two days before the poll, his country’s first for 16 years.
But the United States-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) group said the election will not be fair because the ruling party has received massive state funding and media coverage.
”During the pre-campaign period, HRW documented abuses including intimidation of the opposition and media, interference in the electoral commission and violent incidents against the opposition,” it said in a statement.
In its statement, HRW said ”the Angolan government is failing to fully meet basic requirements for free and fair elections”.
Meanwhile, the main opposition Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) leader, Isaias Samakuva, slammed the government’s record in a speech to a much smaller rally in a rundown district 5km across the city.
”Do you think that someone who has not been able to keep their promises for 33 years will do so in four years,” he asked the crowd of about 8 000.
Unita has complained of intimidation in the run-up to the polls, a factor Samakuva said contributed to the low turnout at the party’s final rally.
”If we consider that many people have practised intimidation and prevented people coming to our meeting, I am satisfied,” he told reporters at the rally.
American-style rally
The MPLA leadership said earlier they expected up to two million people to attend their party’s contrasting American-style rally, a far cry from the party’s Marxist roots.
The venue, a huge abandoned lot in the northern suburb of Cacaupo, was transformed into a sea of MPLA red, black and yellow as party activists handed out T-shirts, hats, flags and free beer to the crowd, and music praising the party blared from loudspeakers.
”We need a modern constitution to strengthen democracy … to build a democratic, participative society that will guarantee the fundamental rights and development of civil society,” said the president, who has been in power for three decades.
”To see the president and express my support for him brings me a lot of joy,” 28-year-old Luisa da Piedade Garcia, who had staked out a prime spot close to the podium, said.
The teacher and staunch MPLA supporter has no doubts about the outcome of the vote.
”We have already won,” she said, adding that the MPLA ”has brought us peace and improved and rebuilt the country”.
Nearly half of the country’s 17-million population has registered to vote in Friday’s election, the first since an aborted attempt in 1992 held during a lull in a devastating 27-year civil war that ended only six years ago.
Despite using massive oil and diamond reserves to become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, two-thirds of Angola’s population lives on less than $2 a day.
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at HRW, said: ”The government is more concerned with keeping the MPLA’s grip on power than with moving towards genuine political accountability by giving Angolans a real chance to choose their government.” — Sapa-AFP