By John Ikani
The MPLA that has ruled Angola continuously for nearly 50 years claimed victory on Friday in this week’s election, after the electoral commission put its share of the vote at 51%, but the leader of the main opposition coalition rejected the results.
With more than 97% of the votes in Wednesday’s election counted, the MPLA was polling about 51% against 44% for Unita, electoral officials say.
This would give President João Lourenço a second five-year term in office and extend the rule of the MPLA which has governed the southern African oil producer since independence from Portugal in 1975.
“We have reached yet another outright majority. We have a calm majority to govern without any kind of problem and we will do it,” MPLA spokesman Rui Falcao told a news conference in the capital Luanda, a city that overwhelmingly voted for Unita.
However, UNITA leader Costa Junior, addressing journalists and supporters for the first time since the vote, rejected what he called “brutal” discrepancies between the commission’s count and their own tally.
“There is not the slightest doubt that the MPLA did not win the elections,” he said. “UNITA does not recognise the provisional results.”
Junior called for an international commission to review the tally.
Wednesday’s poll had been billed as Angola’s most closely-fought election since independence in 1975.
While the MPLA says it has a mandate to govern for the next five years, its vote is down from the 61% it gained in the previous elections in 2017.
On the flip side, Unita’s share is sharply up from 27%, fuelled by high levels of poverty and youth unemployment.
