Luanda – Angolan President Joao Lourenco on Friday called general elections for August 24, when he will seek another term against an opposition that has sought to unify against him.
“The President of the republic calls the general elections for president and members of the National Assembly, and sets the date of August 24, 2022 for their holding,” the presidency said in a statement.
Lourenco’s People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party has ruled Angola since independence from Portugal in 1975. The party has survived through a bloody civil war, and oil boom and a bust.
A former defence minister, Lourenco was handpicked by former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos to take the reins. He took office after the 2017 elections.
Dos Santos’s family had built a multi-billion-dollar business empire, while most of the nation’s 33 million people live in poverty.
Angolan president vows to battle graft ahead of elections
Lourenco quickly turned on his erstwhile patron, opening corruption investigations that have targeted Dos Santos’s son, while probes overseas have delved into the affairs of his daughter.
Rival parties have coalesced around a single candidate, forming the United Patriotic Front to support Adalberto Costa Junior, who heads UNITA, the largest opposition party and former rebel movement.
He told reporters in Europe on Wednesday that he had little hope for transparent elections.
“The Angolan government has already shown that it has no will to hold transparent polls,” he said. “Between Jose Eduardo dos Santos and Joao Lourenco, nothing has changed regarding corruption.”
Dos Santos is accused of appointing family and friends to key positions during his 38-year rule, leaving the country with a legacy of both poverty and nepotism.
Lourenco has vowed to restore Angola’s oil-dependent economy and fight graft, leading a purge of his predecessor’s administration focused mainly on the former first family.
The dos Santos children have accused Lourenco of a political “witch hunt”.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Pexels
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