Angolans vote in tight race in which alienated youth may tilt balance

By Catarina Demony and Miguel Gomes

LUANDA (Reuters) -Angolans voted on Wednesday in a good race wherein the principle opposition coalition has its best-ever probability of victory, as tens of millions of youth omitted of its oil-fuelled booms are anticipated to specific frustration with practically 5 many years of MPLA rule.

The ruling celebration stays favorite, although the margin is slim sufficient for a shock UNITA victory, which may shift relations with international superpowers – with presumably much less pleasant ties with Russia.

Since independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola has been run by the previously Marxist Individuals’s Motion for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), led since 2017 by President Joao Lourenco.

However an Afrobarometer survey in Could confirmed the Nationwide Union for the Whole Independence of Angola’s (UNITA) opposition coalition, led by Adalberto Costa Junior, growing its share to 22%, from 13% in 2019.

That is nonetheless seven factors behind the MPLA, however practically half of voters have been undecided. Many youths – beneath 25s make up 60% of the nation – are voting for the primary time.

“I hope this election brings a little bit of change as a result of the nation just isn’t good as it’s,” Goncalo Junior Maneco, a 25-year-old electrician, stated as he waited to vote at a polling station within the Lusiada College within the capital Luanda.

President Lourenco, who’s in search of re-election, voted on the similar polling station surrounded by heavy safety.

“We’ve got simply exercised our proper to vote. It is quick and easy. We advise all eligible residents to do the identical. Ultimately, we are going to all win, democracy wins and Angola wins,” Lourenco advised reporters.

In a tense run-up to the vote for each president and parliament, UNITA urged voters to remain close to polling stations after voting to cut back the danger of fraud.

Opposition chief Costa Junior was compelled to vote at a polling station totally different from the one the place he was presupposed to, due to issues with registration.

“The method is continuing in an orderly and peaceable method. The final environment is calm and there aren’t any information of any disturbances that would jeopardise the method,” a spokesperson for the Nationwide Electoral Fee advised reporters on Wednesday morning.

Tweaked vote-counting guidelines could delay official outcomes by days, analysts say, elevating tensions which some worry could boil over into violence.

“I hope it (the election) takes place in a peaceable and tranquil atmosphere,” stated Adriano Francisco, 49, as he queued to vote.

RUSSIA TIES

Fearing fraud, which marred previous elections, an activist monitoring group, Mudei Motion, is planning to take footage of outcomes sheets at as many polling stations as attainable, coordinator Luaty Beirao advised Reuters on Tuesday.

“The (motion) would don’t have any cause to exist if the method was clear and there was no cause to doubt the establishments that organise it,” he stated.

A UNITA victory may weaken many years of shut ties with Moscow, for whom the MPLA was a chilly battle proxy throughout Angola’s 27-year civil battle ending in 2002, whereas UNITA was U.S.-backed.

UNITA condemned “the invasion of Ukraine by Russia”, Costa Junior stated on Twitter. He additionally travelled to Brussels and Washington to construct ties with Western companions earlier than elections.

Russia’s ambassador to Angola, Vladimir Tararov, was quoted in Angolan press in March as praising the nation for its neutrality whereas lambasting UNITA for wanting to indicate it “stands with the West, the so-called civilised nations”.

Lourenco has additionally opened as much as the West since his election in 2017, however in March Angola abstained from supporting a United Nations decision which condemned Russia’s battle in Ukraine.

“It’s extremely attainable {that a} UNITA win would imply a distancing of Angola from Russia,” Charles Ray, head of the Africa Programme on the International Coverage Analysis Institute, advised Reuters, however provided that it may possibly consolidate energy over a pro-Russian navy first.

Lourenco has tried to enhance relations with Washington, and simply earlier than the elections utilized to hitch a commerce settlement with the European Union and southern African states, which has been in drive since 2016. Talks begin in months.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony and Miguel Gomes in Luanda; extra reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Johannesburg; Writing by Francesco Guarascio, enhancing by Tim Cocks, Nick Macfie and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)