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Elections in Angola take place within the framework of a multi-party democracy. The National Assembly is directly elected by voters, while the leader of the party or coalition with the most seats in the National Assembly automatically becomes President.
Although Angola had sent representatives to the Portuguese Parliament in the early 19th century, it was not until the 1920s that the Portuguese authorities consented to the creation of a legislative body in the territory. In 1922 a Legislative Council was established, elected by Portuguese settlers. [1] However, the council was suppressed following the 1926 coup in Portugal.
In 1955 a new Legislative Council was established, although only those officially classed as "civilised" were allowed to vote. This effectively limited the franchise to European settlers, most mulattos and a small number of Europeanised Africans ( Assimilados ). [2] In May 1972 the Portuguese parliament passed the Organic Law for the Overseas Territories, which provided for greater autonomy for overseas territories; this created a 53-member Legislative Assembly for Angola, of which 32 would be elected, with the remainder nominated by public services, religious groups and business groups. [3] Elections were held in March 1973, but due to continued restrictions on suffrage, only 584,000 people registered to vote out of a total population of 5,673,046. Around 86% of those registered cast votes, and the elected members included 29 Europeans and 24 Africans. [3]
Following independence in 1975, the outbreak of the Angolan Civil War delayed the country's first post-independence elections until 1980. By then, the MPLA had created a one-party state. It organised indirect elections, in which voters elected carefully vetted candidates to electoral colleges, who in turn elected the National Assembly. [4] The next elections were due to be held in 1983, but they were delayed until 1986 due to the ongoing war. [5] When they were held, it was under the same indirect system.
The Bicesse Accords ended the civil war in 1991 and saw the introduction of multi-party democracy. General elections were held in 1992, with the President being elected by the public for the first time. The MPLA won 129 of the 220 seats in the National Assembly, whilst UNITA emerged as the main opposition party with 70 seats. José Eduardo dos Santos of the MPLA and Jonas Savimbi of UNITA received the most votes in the first round of the presidential elections, but Savimbi claimed the election had been rigged, despite United Nations observers stating that they had been mostly free and fair. [6] He refused to participate in the runoff, and restarted the civil war.
The civil war ended in 2002 following Savimbi's death. However, elections were delayed until 2008. The MPLA received over 80% of the vote, winning 191 of the 220 seats in the National Assembly. Presidential elections were scheduled for 2009, [7] but a new constitution promulgated in 2010 scrapped direct elections for the presidency, with the leader of the largest party in the National Assembly automatically becoming president. The next elections in 2012 saw another landslide victory for the MPLA, although their vote share was reduced to 72% and they lost 16 seats.
The 1992 constitution provided for the direct election of the president. However, this was abolished by the 2010 constitution, which in Article 109 states that "the individual heading the national list of the political party or coalition of political parties that receives the most votes in the general election shall be elected President of the Republic and Head of the Executive". [8]
The electoral system for the National Assembly is based on the electoral law passed on 1 November 1991. [9] The 220 members are elected in two ways: 90 are elected from 18 five-seat constituencies and 130 from a single nationwide constituency, both using closed list proportional representation. The D'Hondt method is used for seat allocation in the provincial constituencies and a simple quota largest remainder method is used for the nationwide constituency. [10]
Voters must be at least 18 years old and hold Angolan citizenship. They can be disqualified by having an undischarged bankruptcy or criminal conviction, being declared insane, or holding dual nationality. [9] Candidates must be at least 35 years old and hold Angolan citizenship. Members of the government, judiciary and armed forces and chairs of boards of state-owned companies are ineligible for election. [9]
| Party | Election | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 1986 | 1992 | 2008 | 2012 | 2017 | 2022 | |
| MPLA | 229 | 173 | 129 | 191 | 175 | 150 | 124 |
| UNITA | – | – | 70 | 16 | 32 | 51 | 90 |
| FNLA | – | – | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Others | – | 116 | 16 | 10 | 11 | 18 | 4 |
| Total | 229 | 289 | 220 | 220 | 220 | 220 | 220 |
| Turnout | – | – | 91.35% | 87.36% | 62.77% | 76.13% | 45.65% |
The current political regime in Angola is presidentialism, in which the President of the Republic is also head of state and government; it is advised by a Council of Ministers, which together with the President form the national executive power. Legislative power rests with the 220 parliamentarians elected to the National Assembly. The President of the Republic, together with the parliament, appoints the majority of the members of the two highest bodies of the judiciary, that is, the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court. The judiciary is still made up of the Court of Auditors and the Supreme Military Court.
Angola was first settled by San hunter-gatherer societies before the northern domains came under the rule of Bantu states such as Kongo and Ndongo. In the 15th century, Portuguese colonists began trading, and a settlement was established at Luanda during the 16th century. Portugal annexed territories in the region which were ruled as a colony from 1655, and Angola was incorporated as an overseas province of Portugal in 1951. After the Angolan War of Independence, which ended in 1974 with an army mutiny and leftist coup in Lisbon, Angola achieved independence in 1975 through the Alvor Agreement. After independence, Angola entered a long period of civil war that lasted until 2002.
The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in the Angolan War for Independence (1961–1975) and then against the MPLA in the ensuing civil war (1975–2002). The war was one of the most prominent Cold War proxy wars, with UNITA receiving military aid initially from the People's Republic of China from 1966 until October 1975 and later from the United States and apartheid South Africa while the MPLA received support from the Soviet Union and its allies, especially Cuba.
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi was an Angolan revolutionary, politician, and rebel military leader who founded and led the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). UNITA was one of several groups which waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule from 1966 to 1974. Once independence was achieved, it then became an anti-communist group which confronted the ruling People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) during the Angolan Civil War. Savimbi had extensive contact with anti-communist activists in the United States, including Jack Abramoff and was one of the leading anti-communist voices in the world. Savimbi was killed in a clash with government troops in 2002.
The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, for some years called the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola – Labour Party, is an Angolan social democratic political party. The MPLA fought against the Portuguese Army in the Angolan War of Independence from 1961 to 1974, and defeated the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) in the Angolan Civil War. The party has ruled Angola since the country's independence from Portugal in 1975, being the de facto government throughout the civil war and continuing to rule afterwards.
The president of Angola is both head of state and head of government in Angola. According to the constitution adopted in 2010, the post of prime minister is abolished; executive authority belongs to the president who has also a degree of legislative power, as he can govern by decree.
José Eduardo dos Santos was an Angolan politician and military officer who served as the president of Angola from 1979 to 2017. As president, dos Santos was also the commander-in-chief of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and president of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the party that has ruled Angola since it won independence in 1975. By the time he stepped down in 2017, he was the second-longest-serving president in Africa, surpassed only by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.
Elections in Guinea-Bissau take place within the framework of a multi-party democracy and a semi-presidential system. Both the President and the National People's Assembly are directly elected by voters.
Isaías Henrique Ngola Samakuva is an Angolan politician who was the President of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) from June 2003 to November 2019.
The National Assembly is the legislative branch of the government of Angola. Angola is a unicameral country so the National Assembly is the only legislative chamber at the national level. The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has held a majority in the Assembly since Angolan independence in 1975.
Parliamentary elections were held in Angola on 5 and 6 September 2008, as announced by President José Eduardo dos Santos on 27 December 2007. They were the first since the 1992 general elections, which had led to the outbreak of the second phase of the Angolan Civil War, which continued until 2002.
General elections were held in Angola on 29 and 30 September 1992 to elect a President and National Assembly, the first time free and multi-party elections had been held in the country. They followed the signing of the Bicesse Accord on 31 May 1991 in an attempt to end the 17-year-long civil war. Voter turnout was 91.3% for the parliamentary election and 91.2% for the presidential election.
Since its independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola has had three constitutions. The first came into force in 1975 as an "interim" measure; the second was approved in a 1992 referendum, and the third one was instituted in 2010.
In the 1990s in Angola, the last decade of the Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), the Angolan government transitioned from a nominally communist state to a nominally democratic one, a move made possible by political changes abroad and military victories at home. Namibia's declaration of independence, internationally recognized on April 1, eliminated the southwestern front of combat as South African forces withdrew to the east. The MPLA abolished the one-party system in June and rejected Marxist-Leninism at the MPLA's third Congress in December, formally changing the party's name from the MPLA-PT to the MPLA. The National Assembly passed law 12/91 in May 1991, coinciding with the withdrawal of the last Cuban troops, defining Angola as a "democratic state based on the rule of law" with a multi-party system.
The People's Republic of Angola was the self-declared socialist state which governed Angola from its independence in 1975 until 25 August 1992, during the Angolan Civil War.
The Halloween Massacre was a purge of UNITA party members and supporters carried out by Angola's ruling MPLA from October 30 to November 1, 1992, in Luanda, Angola. The unrest occurred as a result of the breakdown of the Bicesse Accords, on account of alleged voter fraud in the 1992 Angolan general elections, resulting in renewed military tensions, assassinations of public figures, and acts of terrorism. Thousands of UNITA supporters are estimated to have been murdered.
General elections were held in Angola on 31 August 2012 to elect the President and National Assembly. These were the first elections after the new 2010 constitution was instituted. During campaigning, the opposition UNITA and its offshoot CASA-CE accused and criticised the government of corruption and called for greater transparency; this led to protests and arrests the day before the election.
General elections were held in Angola on 23 August 2017 to elect the President and National Assembly, although voting was delayed until 26 August at 15 polling stations due to bad weather on election day. The top candidate of the winning party is elected president. The ruling party MPLA headed by João Lourenço was widely expected to win. Preliminary results show that MPLA won with a clear margin. The final results were released on 6 September 2017.
General elections were held in Angola on 24 August 2022 to elect the President and National Assembly. Incumbent president João Lourenço was eligible for one more term. The MPLA was re-elected with a reduced majority, winning 124 seats with 51% of the vote. The main opposition party, UNITA won 90 seats with 44% of the vote. The Social Renewal Party (PRS), the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the Humanist Party of Angola (PHA) each won two seats. The elections were the closest in Angolan history between the MPLA and UNITA.
