The occasion of incumbent Joao Lourenco received 51.17% of the vote towards 43.95% for the opposition UNITA, electoral fee says.
Angola’s MPLA occasion was declared the winner of a intently fought election, extending its decades-long rule and giving President Joao Lourenco a second time period.
Official outcomes introduced by the Nationwide Electoral Fee (CNE) on Monday reported the Individuals’s Motion for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) received 51.17 p.c of the ballots towards 43.95 p.c for the principle challenger, the Nationwide Union for the Whole Independence of Angola (UNITA).
“The CNE proclaims Joao Manuel Goncalves Lourenco president of the republic,” fee head Manuel Pereira da Silva instructed a information convention.
The vote was the tightest in Angola’s historical past. Outcomes – the smallest margin of victory the occasion has ever had – in previous elections have been contested, a course of that may take a number of weeks.
UNITA, a former insurgent motion that fought a bitter 27-year civil conflict towards the MPLA authorities that led to 2002, earlier rejected provisional outcomes.
Adalberto Costa Junior, 60, chief of UNITA, final week known as for a world panel to overview the vote depend. He cited discrepancies between the fee’s depend and the principle opposition coalition’s personal tally. He didn't instantly reply to the announcement of the ultimate outcomes.
Analysts worry any dispute may ignite mass avenue protests and potential violence amongst poor and pissed off youth who voted for Costa Junior.
The MPLA has historically wielded management over the electoral course of in addition to state media, and opposition and civic teams have in latest days raised fears of vote tampering.
The MPLA, a former liberation motion, has dominated Angola since independence from Portugal in 1975. But it surely has seen a gradual decline in help in latest elections.
The announcement of Lourenco’s victory got here a day after the funeral of Angola’s long-serving ex-ruler and MPLA stalwart Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
Lourenco has additionally promised to reform one of many world’s most unequal economies, whose spurts of oil-fueled progress have carried out little however pile up riches contained in the gated compounds and offshore financial institution accounts of high MPLA officers.
Who's Lourenco?
Born in Lobito, in Angola’s coastal Benguela province, Lourenco’s household was concerned within the battle for independence towards Portuguese rule. His father, a nurse, was jailed within the capital Luanda for political exercise between 1958 and 1960.
In his early 20s, Lourenco joined the Marxist MPLA motion in 1974 in exile within the Democratic Republic of the Congo and was a part of the primary group to enter Angola throughout an anti-colonial rise up that succeeded in late 1975.
He acquired army coaching between 1978 and 1982 within the former Soviet Union, the place he acquired a grasp’s diploma in historical past earlier than returning house. He ultimately gave up being a soldier and have become a politician.
His victory means a probable continuation of Angola’s geopolitical tightrope of strolling between Russia and the West.
Lourenco, 68, has tried to restore ties with Washington, and simply earlier than the elections utilized to affix an present commerce settlement with the European Union and southern African states.
However owing to MPLA’s historic robust Russian ties, Angola abstained from the UN decision condemning the conflict in Ukraine.
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