Angola’s election

By hook or by crook

Lacking faith in its popularity, the ruling party bribes and bullies its opponents

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Readers' comments



Just to put things right, the 17 billion dollars much needed electricity plan was announced before the elections campaign and should not be labeled as a campaign promise. I hope they complete it because electricity is a major problem both for households and industry.


In Africa we have the tendency to promote democracy for democracy's sake just so tyrants can declare "there was an election, and I won it!". As al Jazeera's Emike Umolu said on her blog ( we must force the promotion of democracy for the people's sake and if our leaders refuse to act in our best interests, we must hold our own "African Spring" and remove them from power. SammyDijon

Aly-Khan Satchu

The Mobile Phone - and now via The Mobile phone - The Mobile Internet has been a Silver Bullet for Africa. It is the Entry Ticket to the c21st and it is wonderfully Grass Roots because Practically Everyone can pony up a $100.00 somehow.
The Demography, the Enormous Bulge below 24 in Sub Saharan Africa in tandem with the Broad based Arrival of the Internet abled Phone is set to prove entirely disruptive to some entrenched Regimes. It might not tip this time but next time it will be full blooded and disruptive and all over the Continent.
Aly-Khan Satchu


The opposition is doing a good job…BUT ZEDU MUST STAY FOR MORE 4 YEARS…(is true PODER ABSOLUTO CORROMPE) UNITA FNLA WERE THE ONES WHO FOUGHT AGAINST THE PARTY IN POWER (MPLA) FOR 27 YEARS. War finish in 2002 and the opposition parties were forgiven by the MPLA and by the Angolan People. However, UNITA, with the help of its members such as PAULA ROQUE is organising demonstration in order to destabilise the general election due tomorrow…ZEDU MUST STAY FOR NOW…REASONS, THE FASTEST GROWING ECONOMY IN THE WORLD? NOT CHINA, BUT YES ANGOLA, check the statistic on THE ECONOMIST…There is many other reasons…FOR NOW UNITA MUST WAIT, AND OF COURSE, MUST FIRST CONVINCE THE ANGOLAN PEOPLE…O QUE NAO VAI SER FACIL E SAVIMBI SEMPRE SOUBE DISSO…

Plen in reply to Angola3000

For starters, Angola is not a fast growing economy because of the value add of the people in the economy. It is a fast growing economy only because it happens to be located over a large source of oil. As a further point - most of that oil is located in Cabinda - a country that was annexed by Angola and faces occupation by Angola to this day.

UNITA, FNLA and MPLA would have shared power in a democracy over 27 years ago if they were serious about democracy at the Alvor agreement. The war should not have happened, but MPLA made its contribution (along with the others) to undermine the Alvor agreement and fight for power. The end of the war resulted in what should have happened at the Alvor agreement.... some form of peaceful democracy.

Your statement, "..the opposition parties were forgiven by the MPLA and by the Angolan People...." Really? How many of the Angolan people have forgiven the MPLA/Cubans for carrying out bombing raids along the Eastern border murdering thousands innocent civilians?

When Angola peacefully hands power back and forth between opposition parties and stops being a "one-party-democracy", will it then be respected.

JCost in reply to Plen

Cabinda is not a country, it's an Angolan province. And "most" of oil is no longer explored in Cabinfa, Zaire province is ridiculously rich in oil as well and brand new LNG plant is there, huge pre-salt reserves under exploration are further south. The problem arising from bad governance are exclusive to Cabinda.

On that MPLA forgiving opposition, I'm with you. Both sides should be forgiven by the Angolan people.

Plen in reply to JCost

Okay - so we not entirely arguing. Then perhaps I should try get clarity from you on a particular issue:

From my understanding of the Angola-Cabinda history, Cabinda was a separate country/colony of Portugal and never part of the greater Angola. The people of Cabinda are historically unrelated (on a tribal level) from the rest of Angola. Cabinda had its own Portuguese governor general who retired and handed over the governorship to the Angolan Governor General on a temporary basis until a new Governor General for Cabinda was appointed by Portugal. That appointment did not happen for a prolonged period (a lot of squabbling within Portugal). In the mean time the politics within Angola and within Portugal changed rapidly leading up to the 1975 decolonisation of Angola and Cabinda. By default (at the time) the leader of Angola would also take leadership of Cabinda which was not necessarily justified and only a technicality. But Cabinda being the rich oil resource was the jewel in any power struggle. Cuba sent over 2,000 soldiers to cabinda and less than 100 to Angola in November 1975, which showed clearly that they too wanted to claim a hold on Cabinda.

Although the people of Cabinda did try create a revolt, the Cubans squashed them. The only unfortunate bit of history is that the people of Cabinda did not have strong international support, leadership and numbers to fight for their territory.

Today they are a forgotten nation.


JCost in reply to Plen

Unrelated? They speak the share lots culturally with Northern provinces of Angola. It's a big country, people of Luanda are different from people from Kunene but there's no reason to be in different countries! Saint Helena island, off the coast of Angola, is part of the UK.



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