Saturday September 6, 2008

Angola extends election after opposition protests

By Henrique Almeida

LUANDA (Reuters) - Angola's first election for 16 years goes into an unscheduled second day on Saturday after opposition parties condemned the vote as chaotic and demanded a re-run.

Opposition UNITA leader Isaias Samakuva casts his vote at a polling station in the capital Luanda, September 5, 2008. (REUTERS/Stringer)

The election, largely a race between the ruling MPLA and UNITA, has been keenly watched by the international community because of controversy marring recent African polls and Angola's emergence as one of the world's major oil producers.

It was not clear if the extension of Angola's voting would satisfy the opposition UNITA party, which earlier described the poll as a "mess" and said it should be re-held.

Scores of polling stations had failed to open early on Friday and others did so hours late. Problems with voter registration lists were cited as the main cause of the delays.

"The system practically collapsed and we have to do something to recover the process," UNITA leader Isaias Samakuva said after meeting the head of the government-appointed electoral commission that oversaw the voting.

Asked by a reporter if he had requested a fresh election, Samakuva said: "Yes." Earlier he described the voting as "a mess." Two smaller parties said they backed Samakuva's call for the voting to be redone.

In a late-night news conference, Caetano de Sousa, the president of the National Electoral Commission, told reporters voting would continue on Saturday in the province of Luanda, where many of the problems occurred.

The province is home to 21 percent of the estimated 8.3 million registered voters and is considered a stronghold for the MPLA, which is widely expected to win the election and extend its uninterrupted 33-year rule.

Outside Luanda voting generally proceeded normally and some polling stations closed on schedule at 6 p.m. (1700 GMT).

MPLA VS UNITA

Angola's government has touted the election as a showcase for its recovery from a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002 and hopes that it will spur further foreign investment. Angola rivals Nigeria as sub-Saharan Africa's biggest oil producer.

Angolans last voted in 1992 in joint parliamentary and presidential elections. The presidential race was aborted after UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi withdrew, accusing MPLA leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos of cheating his way to victory.

Savimbi then led his supporters back into the bush where the rebel group resumed its war against the government. An estimated half a million people died in the conflict, which ended after Savimbi was killed in an ambush in 2002.

"This is a day of hope. Things will change because we have suffered a lot to live in peace," Esperanca da Gloria, a 65-year-old retired nurse, said while waiting to vote near the presidential palace in Luanda.

Tensions between UNITA and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which took power after independence from Portugal in 1975, have simmered for the past six years and heated up during the one-month election campaign.

UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) said the MPLA was getting too much free publicity from state- owned media and engaging in low-level attacks on its supporters, an allegation supported by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

The government dismissed the attacks while expressing confidence it would overwhelm a fragmented opposition.

MPLA supporters openly boasted of the prospect the party would boost its share of the 220-seat parliament, possibly winning the two-thirds majority that would allow it to make sweeping changes to the country's Constitution.

The MPLA held 129 seats going into the election, with the remainder mostly controlled by UNITA. Twelve other parties contested the election.

Despite accusations it has turned a blind eye to corruption and glaring social ills, Dos Santos and his supporters have banked on voters giving the government credit for presiding over the country's economic boom.

Oil production has more than doubled since the end of the war to about 2 million barrels per day, helping fuel double-digit economic growth.

UNITA pinned its electoral hopes on discontent over the government's failure to dent the country's excruciating poverty and high unemployment.

Two-thirds of Angolans live on $2 a day and at least 40 percent of the work force is unemployed.

(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/)

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