The Paper's special contributor Hu Yukun
On 24 August, Angola held general elections in which eight political parties and a coalition of political parties competed for the presidency and 220 seats in the National Assembly. After counting votes and questioning disputes, Angola's National Election Commission finally confirmed on August 29 that the "Angolan People's Liberation Movement" ("MPLA") won 124 seats with 51.17% of the national vote, and the party chairman Lorenzo was successfully re-elected as president.
The Security Movement, which has been in power since Angola's independence in 1975, survived this time and retained its ruling position. However, compared with the previous six general elections, especially the four elections after the introduction of the multi-party system in 1991, the number of votes and seats won by the Security Movement has continued to decline. Compared to the last general election five years ago alone, the number of votes dropped by about 10 percent and the number of seats was reduced by 26.
The results of the Angolan general election (above) and the country's previous general elections, source: Wikipedia
In contrast, the old rival of spiliation and the main opposition party, the National League for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), continued its upward momentum, receiving 44% of the vote and 90 seats, almost doubling the results of the last general election. The international media, which has observed this election, almost all of them have emphasized it as "the closest election in history" in their reports.
An "unprecedented" and "expected" election
In fact, UNITA is not even satisfied with such results, with party chairman Adalberto da Costa Junior last week rejecting the results of the election, arguing that it was inconsistent with UNITA's estimates. UNITA even submitted an application for a recount, accusing the National Electoral Commission of being "flooded with pro-Security SPLM members."
It can be seen that although President Lorenzo stressed that the victory of spousal is a "guarantee of stability", it is undeniable that the results of this year's Angolan general election can be described as "unprecedented". At the same time, for the international community and the media who are following this election, the election results, although they can be used as a headline gimmick, are already expected by them. Long before the vote began, media outlets such as the BBC predicted that the election would be an unprecedented test for the Security Movement, which has been in power for nearly half a century.
Judging from the polls of the pre-election agencies, it has been the norm in the past two years for UNITA's support to approach the SPLM, and even surpassed the latter at one point. Among them, the Spanish polling agency Sigma Dos' pre-election sample survey of bipartisan support and the number of seats won was very close to the final result. Combined with the data of pollsters that have long tracked the support of Angolan political parties, the popularity of the Security People's Movement and UNITA has been a continuous norm since Lourenço came to power in 2017.
In observing the Angolan election, the New York Times proposed an important influencing factor in the current political ecology of the Angolan party: young voters. Combined with United Nations statistics, the New York Times pointed out that more than half of Angola's voters today are under the age of 35, which means that they have not experienced the history of armed struggle and national independence in their homeland in the 1960s and 1970s. They also do not have an intuitive memory or perception of the historical exploits of traditional political forces such as the Ann Movement that ended the portuguese white minority colonial rule.
The vast number of young voters are indifferent to the historical sources of traditional political power and its legitimacy, pay more attention to people's livelihood issues such as employment, and dare to express their political attitudes publicly. For today's young Angolans, unemployment is undoubtedly the social issue that most arouses their discontent. According to angola's National Bureau of Statistics, the country's unemployment rate has now exceeded 30%, of which the youth unemployment rate has approached 60% in the past two years.
Young people see no hope, the economy has been in recession for five consecutive years, inflation has led to a soaring cost of living... In stark contrast, corruption is pervasive in Angola. Although when Lourenço took office five years ago, he promised to make the fight against corruption his top priority, even pointing the finger at the family of former President Dos Santos, the problem has not improved substantially, and opposition parties have even accused Lourenço of using the anti-corruption campaign to divert attention and cover up the fact that his governance is weak and the economy is poor.
Faced with this status quo, UNITA sees an opportunity. As an old adversary of the SPLM government and a former guerrilla group that has fought in the countryside and jungle mountains for more than 20 years, UNITA has in recent years built itself into a modern political party representing urban voters. In November 2019, Junior was elected party chairman, the first time in the party's history that it was led by someone without a guerrilla background. As a charismatic politician who had once been exiled to Europe, Junyor began to unite with civil society organizations, other opposition movements, and even disaffected anti-corruption movements within the Ann Spun Party to expand his territory.
During this year's campaign, Junyort declared in interviews that UNITA's candidates "represent an open mind for building the future and proposing solutions to the major problems facing Angola, rather than one-party proposals". In October last year, UNITA, together with two opposition parties, the Pro-Democracy Group and Now in Angola," formed the United Patriotic Front (FPU) to try to participate in the general elections as a coalition of political parties. Although the coalition could not ultimately be registered in this year's elections, both "league parties" supported UNITA candidates in the general election.
It can be seen from this that the political pattern embodied in this general election is not an accident, but may be a necessary process of a long-term trend of change.
On August 24, 2022, local time, Luanda, Angola, a woman folded her ballot at a polling station during the Angolan general election. People's Vision Infographic
After the narrow victory, it still needs multiple efforts to win back the hearts and minds of the people
Whether or not it was a "guarantee of stability", SPLM's presidency and Lourenço's presidency were extended after the elections. At present, although UNITA is dissatisfied with the election results, there is no sign of "tearing down and starting over" with fierce action. The dust has settled on the elections, but for the Angolan government, it is far from a day's work to regain voter trust and alleviate the ills faced by the country and society over the years.
First, despite retaining the right to govern, the security movement is far less dominant in the political arena than it used to be. The new National Assembly will consist of sprawl, UNITA and three other smaller parties with two seats each, the most important of which is that sprawl will no longer have two-thirds of the seats, meaning the party cannot amend the constitution on its own.
Angolan analyst Augusto Santana noted that the pattern of the new National Assembly suggests that SPLM and the government will face stronger scrutiny from opposition parties. In addition to the implementation of the various daily governance bills, the SPLM needs to negotiate and consult with the opposition parties on the appointment of personnel in various important institutions, otherwise it will face greater resistance.
Compared with the pressures brought about by the new political landscape, the more difficult task of the Angolan government is how to effectively improve the country's economic and social problems, achieve immediate results, and regain the trust of the people, especially young voters. During The presidency of Lourenço, Angola's economy has been negative for five consecutive years, and in recent years, under the double blow of the NEW CROWN epidemic and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Angola's economic fundamentals have been even less optimistic. Angolan economist Francisco Paul pointedly said: "In terms of economic prospects, there is no reason for the people to vote again for SPLM. ”
Angola's economic unity is rare worldwide. As the second largest oil producer in Africa, the country's economy is highly dependent on oil exports, which also means that the country's economic situation is highly correlated with international oil prices, and the original industrial and agricultural foundation has not been effectively restored after years of war. In the later years of the administration of former President Dos Santos, with the peaceful development environment and the dividends of oil and diamond exports, it once achieved a GDP growth rate of more than double digits for five consecutive years.
However, in recent years, international oil prices have been at a low level, which has a serious impact on the Angolan economy. Since the beginning of this year, although the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has led to a surge in oil prices, the poor management of state-owned oil companies for many years has led to the country's inability to obtain enough "oil dividends" like other oil-producing countries, and the economic growth rate in 2022 is expected to be only 3%. The Harvard University Growth Lab judged that with the macro trend of crude oil production cuts unchanged, Angola urgently needs to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence on oil.
When Lourenço was elected president five years ago, he made two major commitments to the Angolan people: "fighting corruption" and "diversifying the economy". In order to achieve this economic goal, the Angolan government invested in infrastructure construction through oil revenues and international loans, but with limited success, it led to a sharp increase in Angolan public debt. At the end of last year, the country's debt had reached 110% of its total GDP, but the newly built roads and bridges had fallen into disrepair due to mismanagement and other reasons, exacerbating the cost of transportation and basic living materials. How to fully stimulate economic growth in the future, to achieve economic diversification, alleviate public debt, and strengthen the provision of capital for infrastructure, remains a major problem.
Related to economic development are the two long-standing problems of employment and corruption. Affected by the traditional economic development model, two thirds of Angola's population is urban, and the employment of urban youth is the most critical. But data from Angola's National Statistical Office is staggering: in addition to the high unemployment rate, 79 percent of Angola's employed population struggles to make a living in the informal economy, such as running food stalls and working as a driver for a motorcycle. After all, the oil industry cannot absorb all labor employment, and adequately solving the employment problem requires the development of multiple industries to bring employment opportunities.
Compared with the isolated rural and mountain dwellers, urban youth are more educated, more concerned about public affairs, and more resentful of corruption in the country's politics. Former President Dos Santos has been in power for 38 years, and angola's corruption has not only made its own people and the current President Lourenço intolerable, but also "famous" internationally, ranking last in the corruption index rankings of organizations such as Transparency International for many years.
After five years of anti-corruption campaigns, Angola does not seem to have played a better role than to improve slightly in these international rankings. Party members, including Dos Santos and his family, were dissatisfied with this, and even centrifugal forces appeared, with opposition parties questioning the government's motives for the anti-corruption campaign, and even the public was not very convinced. A 22-year-old voter interviewed by The New York Times scoffed at the government's promises, arguing that the SPLM had changed nothing but substitutions and would not "stop looting our money."
In this general election, the security movement lost to the UNITA candidate in the competition for seats in Luanda, the capital of its traditional "iron ticket district", is already a very clear signal. On the one hand, the highly youthful and urbanized demographic structure means that the Angolan government has almost no opportunity to eat the old merits such as "winning national independence". On the other hand, in a country with a median age of only 16.7 years and a high fertility rate for women in the world (5.55 children per capita), the people's livelihood and people's hearts and minds faced by the government have long been two-sided and urgent.
Not to mention, as a neighbor of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola has faced external pressures such as the influx of refugees on many occasions in recent years. For the Angolan government, it has become a top priority to reach a bottom-line consensus with opposition parties such as UNITA, put the resolution of domestic problems above party struggle, and enhance the country's ability to resist internal and external pressures. Looking to the future, whether it is the Security People's Movement, which has narrowly won the election in this election, or the unitarian union, which is one step away from coming to power and is dissatisfied, it is necessary to prove to the people its ability to solve problems.
(Hu Yukun, Member of the China Translation Association and International Political Columnist)
Responsible editor: Zhu Zhengyong Photo editor: Chen Feiyan
Proofreader: Luan Meng