Angola’s main opposition party on Wednesday accused the government of seeking to delay a promised presidential election, calling any postponement an ”attack on the sovereignty of the Angolan people”.
Unita (Union for Total Independence of Angola) leader Isaias Samakuva said because President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was elected in a controversial 1992 ballot, which triggered a new phase of the country’s long-running civil war, he was only a ”transitional” president.
”The mandate of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos is not a democratic mandate with normal powers,” he told a news conference.
”It is unacceptable that after 17 years the country continues with a transitional president who year after year uses tricks not to hold presidential elections in order to keep hold of power.”
Angola held legislative elections in September 2008, in which the ruling MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) won more than 81% of the vote and Unita just 11%.
Presidential elections are expected later this year, but Dos Santos said in December that a new Constitution would have to be approved first.
Samakuva accused Dos Santos of trying to delay the vote.
”There is absolutely no relation between the approval of the new Constitution and the realisation of the presidential elections,” he said.
Unita and the MPLA spent 27 years at war following Angola’s liberation from Portugal.
The conflict ended in 2002 with the death of Unita leader Jonas Savimbi, but the scars of war remain.
Despite oil riches, Angola has some of the worst child and maternal mortality rates in the world while two thirds of the population live on less than $2 a day. — Sapa-AFP