Opposition frets as Angolans head to polls

Angolans yesterday headed to the polls in the second election since the end of their 27-year civil war, with the opposition complaining about the authenticity of the voter roll.Nine million voters in Africa’s second-largest oil producer were registered to vote in Friday’s election which is likely to extend President Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s grip on power despite a revitalised opposition.Voting began at 7am (0600 GMT), polls were set to close 11 hours later.Friday was declared a national holiday and the election commission opened more than 10,000 polling stations.Initial results were expected within a day, with final returns some time next week.Angolans cast votes for parliamentarians, and the leader of the winning party will become president.The ruling People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in power since independence from Portugal in 1975, took more than 80 percent of the vote in the last elections four years ago and is expected to win comfortably again.For the main opposition Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which won only 10 per cent of the vote in 2008, the elections are a chance to prove that the former rebellion is still relevant to national politics.Isaias Samakuva, the leader of UNITA, has already raised concerns about irregularities, mainly about the voter roll, in a campaign that has centred on calls for greater democracy and transparency in government.Speaking on Thursday, Samakuva said: “Many Angolans’ names don’t appear on the voter roll, and in many places the voter roll has not been released.“We have come to the conclusion that the National Electoral Commission is not ready.“The conditions don’t exist to ensure the minimum of an organised, transparent process.”Samakuva unsuccessfully sought to meet Dos Santos to discuss his party’s long-held concerns about the electoral roll and the accreditation of 2,000 of its activists to monitor the balloting.