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Angola Elections 2022: Tense Times as UNITA Rejects Election Results

After an uneasy night in several Angolan cities, the funeral ceremonies for former President José Eduardo dos Santos began on Saturday in the presence of foreign heads of state. A military guard of honour accompanied the flag-draped coffin, as the cortege proceeded from the Dos Santos mansion in the upper-class neighbourhood of Miramar, and along the sweep of the bay to the Square of the Republic, led by a group of women chorusing “Angola weeps for Zedu”. The outgoing MPLA President, João Lourenço did not attend but is expected to be at the formal funeral ceremony on Sunday when his predecessor’s remains will be placed inside a mausoleum within metres of the rocket-shaped monument to Angola’s first President Agostinho Neto. Lourenço who expected to be re-elected comfortably after the August 24 poll, is apparently now facing a divided party and nation, many of whom accuse the MPLA of resorting to […]

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Misery and Magic Fuel Mayhem in Cafunfo

‘MISERY AND MAGIC FUEL MAYHEM IN CAFUNFO’: A new book from Angolan journalist and human rights defender Rafael Marques reveals why a supposedly ‘peaceful protest’ in a diamond-rich but dirt-poor north-eastern town erupted into bloody violence and shocked the nation. (Read full book here.)  Amid public outrage, there were claims that the security forces had used excessive force against peaceful demonstrators – but the truth lay elsewhere. “Within a day of the news of terrible bloodshed during a protest march in the diamond-mining town of Cafunfo, some people had already drawn conclusions,” says Rafael Marques.  “It took me months of investigation to get to the truth.” The undisputable facts were these:  when participants in a banned march clashed with security forces in Cafunfo on January 30th, 2021, at least a dozen people were killed and many more were injured.  Two members of the security forces were lucky to survive a […]

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NO MAGIC – ANGOLA’S BANKING SYSTEM IS JUST SMOKE AND MIRRORS

What happened to the US $2 billion injection of funds from Angola’s central bank (BNA) in 2014 that was supposed to refinance the Banco Económico (BE) as it emerged from the ashes of the failed Banco Espírito Santos (BESA)? Surely José de Lima Massano must have some idea? He was Governor of the Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA) then and is again now. Did he keep track of where the money went? Because the BE is failing again and he seems all too ready to throw good money after bad: ordering majority shareholder Sonangol to inject a further US $1.2 billion of public money into it. So who does this bailout benefit? Mr. Massano is the master magician tasked by President João Lourenço with restoring good governance to the Angolan banking system. Is he not up to the job? Or is he actively sabotaging it? According to Diamantino de Azevedo, […]

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Angolan Vote Count Flouted The Rules

Members of Angola’s National Electoral Commission (CNE) have described how the legal procedures for collecting and tabulating the results of Wednesday’s election were flouted by officials who reported favorable results to the MPLA, with no indication of how these results were calculated. Opposition leaders have accused MPLA of inventing the results. The reports of malpractice come as opposition parties release the results of parallel counts, calculated by adding up the results posted at individual polling stations. These parallel counts show the MPLA in first place, but without an outright majority. The CNE began to announce the preliminary election results on Thursday afternoon, before results from the provinces had been approved either at local level or by the National Counting Center. According to the numbers the CNE announced, the MPLA won a majority with 64.57%, more than double the total of UNITA, which was in second place with 24.4%. CASA-CE took […]

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Angola: The Stolen Elections

Something has happened with the Angolan elections of August 23 that may well be a first in Africa, if not universally. The spokesperson of the National Electoral Commission (CNE) yesterday announced “preliminary results” of the general elections when votes had not been tallied at municipal, provincial, or national levels. The CNE official simply read a statement saying that the ruling MPLA, in power for the last 42 years, had won the elections by 64.57%, a landslide. According to the official, the main opposition UNITA trailed behind with 24.04%, the coalition CASA-CE came in third with 8.56%, while three other parties split the remainder of the votes. With the 63% of the votes the CNE claims to have been counted, it has already gone ahead to allocate the 220 parliamentary seats, giving the ruling MPLA a two-thirds majority with 154 seats. After the public’s disbelief, CNE lowered MPLA’s majority to 61.10% […]

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Elections: MPLA Majority Hangs in the Balance

Of the more than 1.1 million votes already counted, the ruling MPLA has 51%, followed by UNITA with 36% and CASA-CE with 11%. These results reflect a parallel count carried out by UNITA based on official copies that it has obtained of the results posted by individual polling stations. Half of the votes already counted are in Luanda. In the capital city the MPLA and UNITA are neck-and-neck with 40% each, followed by CASA-CE with 13.6%. These Luanda results do not include the most populous districts, Viana and Cacuaco, where the opposition is strongest. So far, the count from these districts suggests that UNITA is heading for a large majority. Maka Angola has learned that the National Electoral Commission (CNE) has stopped releasing provisional results, on the orders of the President of the Republic. The MPLA has expressed surprise at the results. If the trend of increasing opposition votes continues, […]

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Africa: Stereotypes and Western Media Brownie Points

On Saturday, Angolans were expecting an official announcement from the ruling MPLA party (which has held power for 41 years) that President José Eduardo dos Santos would not be running in the 2017 elections. Word had already been leaked to the international media who duly reported this development to the world at large – and yet inside Angola there was still no official confirmation. Not a word from the ruling party, the President or the state-controlled media. The Angola story was paired with that of the Gambian President, Yahya Jammeh, who formally conceded defeat in the presidential elections after 22 years in power. It was heralded as a strand of an emerging trend: one ailing African dictator, Dos Santos, peacefully deciding to leave office (after holding power for 37 year) while another, Jammeh, graciously accepted he has lost a democratic election. Subsequent events suggest the mainstream international media were far […]

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Power: From Major to Minor

There was a time when my gaze was turned to the big picture: international relations, the behaviour of national governments and multi-national corporations.  These days, my focus has narrowed to governance on a small scale.  This is what I like to call “micro” politics compared to the “macro” politics that occupies the major news networks. Yet both can be equally afflicted by corruption and abuse of power. My ‘people’  (i.e. my particular community) elected me President without really knowing me all that well.  The previous ‘regime’ had failed in so many ways that it was enough that I was not the incumbent.   It was unexpected.  But somehow rather flattering (at least until realisation dawned as to just how much hard work lay ahead to right wrongs). In political life it’s a given that any individual or party’s early promise will eventually give way to cynical manipulation. Democratic procedures get nudged […]

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Dictator Dos Santos Going, Going… But Not Just Yet

It is rare for an African dictator to give up power voluntarily.  Thus, on March 11, when Angola’s President announced that he would retire from public life in 2018, the news reverberated across the world.  If he holds true to his word (and that is a big “if”) by the time José Eduardo dos Santos steps down he will have held power for a staggering 39 years. If he is preparing to go, why then is the President employing tactics straight out of the despot’s rulebook?  Why is he casting himself as the ‘victim’ of an imaginary coup plot to justify purges that further embed a culture of fear in Angola? Why would a politician on his way out, bring global ridicule upon himself and his regime with trumped-up charges and a show trial? Seventeen young dissidents are currently standing trial on bogus charges of plotting a rebellion and attempting […]

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The Prosecutor’s Wig and the Trial of the Fictional Rebellion

No novelist could ever make this up. We have a trial. Inside, a number of the available seats are filled with supposed relatives of the accused that the very accused have never seen before. There are a large number of law students present who when asked about the law do not say anything and do not want to be photographed. There are also a large number of security personnel — some trying very hard to stay awake. One of the prosecutors, who refuses to provide her name, turns up wearing dark glasses and a wig which covers half of her face. The defense protests that they are not able to see her properly. She insists that she has the right to wear the wig in the style she likes. Outside, the police harass several members of the public protesting in favour of the accused. Diplomats are also harassed to move […]

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