Angolans head to the polls next week in what is likely to be a tense standoff between a ruling party in power for nearly five decades and an opposition with growing appeal to a frustrated, impoverished youth. CatarinaDemony reports.
The MPLA, led by João Lourenço since 2017, has governed Africa's second-biggest oil producer since independence from Portugal in 1975. But longtime opposition party UNITA is stronger than ever, as anger grows at government failures to convert vast oil wealth into better living conditions for all.
An Afrobarometer survey in May showed Angolans favouring UNITA, led by the charismatic Adalberto Costa Júnior, had increased to 22% from 13% in 2019, still seven points behind the MPLA. Nearly half of voters were undecided. Handpicked by his predecessor José Eduardo dos Santos when he stepped down in 2017 after ruling Angola for 38 years, Lourenço pledged to fight corruption and boost the economy at a time of crisis due to the 2014 oil price crash.
Lourenço also signed a deal with the IMF and improved ties with the West to reposition Angola as a trustworthy investment destination, but was confronted with COVID-19 and a fall in oil prices, then the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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