ANGOLA: VOTERS CHOOSE STATUS QUO OVER NEW DAWN

Angola’s President Eduardo Dos Santos appears not be giving up easily in what seemingly has become a 2-man race or contest between himself and Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to be crowned Africa’s longest serving leader.


Election Results

Last week Dos Santos was elected by way of a landslide victory to serve a further five-year term as President. Currently aged 70 and having already led the country for 33 years, Dos Santos will be 75 by the end of his tenure. Early reports indicate that Dos Santos’s MPLA party won about 70 per cent of the votes while the rest was split between opposing parties UNITA and CASA-CE. Although MPLA’s victory was overwhelming this time, it was not as decisive as the 2008 elections where it amassed about 81 per cent of the votes.


Questions and Protests

As we are all too aware, no elections held in Africa passes without controversy and problems. It therefore comes as no surprise that the validity of the elections have been challenged by the government’s opponents. Concerns have been raised over alleged rigged ballots and the transparency of the election process. In an interview with the Reuters news agency following the announcement of the provisional results, a candidate seeking election on the platform of the opposing CASA-CE party William Tonet denounced the elections as “cheating”. Tonet added that the election results amounted to a “declaration of war” by MPLA.

The leaders of the country’s second largest party UNITA have also voiced their intention to challenge the election results. Pre-election, observers will recall that the party’s leader Isaias Samakuva called for the postponement of the elections for another month as a result of what he termed interference in the election process by the ruling MPLA as well as questions raised over the credibility of the country’s national election commission (CNE).


Giant Leaps

The disquiet which has stemmed from the elections should however not detract from the progress, in gargantuan proportions, which the country has made since the end of its 27-year long civil war which devastated the nation. Now Africa’s second largest oil producing country, its oil wealth has served as the fulcrum of its economic transformation. It is reported that the country experienced an average of 15 percent growth in the period between 2002 and 2008. Further and even more impressive is the fact that Angola reported the world’s highest annual average GDP growth at 11 percent between 2001 and 2010.


Sound-off

Unsurprisingly and much like its oil producing African counterparts Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea the oil wealth has failed to trickle down to those who occupy the bottom strata of its 18 million strong population and as a result endemic corruption, patronage, nepotism and poverty thrive below the glamorous face of the country which is most encapsulated by its skyscraper thronged capital, Luanda.

Perhaps in a bid to address these concerns, Dos Santos ran a re-election campaign which had at its centre the promise to reduce poverty and inequality backed by a declaration to invest $17 billion in the country’s energy sector. At the risk of being labelled a cynic or a pessimist, critics of the Dos Santos government have good basis upon which to base their damning indictments of the administration, after all Dos Santos has already had three decades to lead the country to the promised land but all he has delivered, in spite of the considerable resources which the country is blessed, is a nation with enormous social and economic disparities which may only be checked by a change of administration.

JIM GHEDI: MY THOUGHTS

This week's piece is written by Jim Ghedi, a multi talented individual with hands in music, acting, art and the like. We are grateful to Jim for this article but please note that the contents of the piece are solely the views of its writer and not the blog's author. Enjoy!


The extraordinary beauty and richness of the world cannot be comprehended by any human capacity, we all await what we cannot comprehend and in that there is a beautiful contradiction.

So when we pass on, this power we hold within ourselves opens up to this universal collective energy, what I like to call eternity's soul. That is why while we're all on this physical plain we must together work industriously for human virtues, serve and uphold common goodness for humanity over material means. The key is solidarity.

My ideas are formed on moral incentives, throughout history good men have been demonized for their freedom of thought, through time we must learn and if time has taught us anything it has been solidarity to continue to shape each others vision and push each other creatively for the benefit of humankind.

Passion and love are the forces which motivate our worth, we cannot wait for change.
This society has us working for a meaningless existence, human beings serve an empty function in the concept of making money instead of working for the collective good of humanity or progressively into more positive areas of international social development, i.e. poverty, justice, aid, securing weapons and nuclear disarmament, peace, truth and love.

Let’s build for a better world instead of staying silent in this dehumanizing system that they trap us within. Inside this meaningless empty existence where human beings work to barely survive or feed their families lets connect and create a universal brotherhood and sisterhood with each other, let’s speak our hearts and use our voice for the benefit of humanity. Universal love is what I plead for and seek.

The ability of all beings to carry the spirit of good is embodied within us all. I realise this will sound like another leftist, hippie idealism, but ideals were built upon for others to direct through cultural activism, without ideals there we would stand voiceless.

Truth, love and the oneness of God is the basis upon which this idealism is built. I echo the ideology of Malcolm X, God being a concept which isn't in any religious form but binding the world’s energies together through a mutual existence. If I could leave anything on this earth it would be the memory of this, that I in anyway pushed for this vision to be shared everyday of my life.

Through music and creative arts as my only weapons to express this, I shall use it as the platform and as music is the only food for my soul, strength is love. Let us learn from the message great spirits have left for us. In love and peace we shall flourish.



Jim Ghedi is a Sheffield based musician, poet, writer and general maverick artist. He is currently involved in two main projects in Sheffield under names of Black Gold Of The Sun (His band) & Jim Ghedi and Neal Heppleston (His duo work with a double bass player).

Gaining attention around Manchester as a poet in the previous years, his focus now in his words is "making as much music as possible and giving as much goodness to humanity" he continues “I have always had a general disregard for my own life, my purpose is for others"

He grew up around music and plays several instruments. He also started writing his own music from the age of 8. Jim also has a keen interest in performing arts and has studied Theatre Acting at a performing arts school, thereby adding other strings to his bow.

His philosophy is Art as Activism, he states "I measure richness in life, on someone’s humanity, morality and what is within that human being, it's not about money, it's actually very simple, it's about living your life and expressing your feelings"

At the age of 21 he is a great up and coming artist who shows in-depth philosophical insight, keen observation, a desperate plea to a world to connect and a general voice which has a bitter truth to it. All of this is reflected within his works which are available to the public.

You can catch him at his upcoming gigs advertised on his websites (http://www.facebook.com/JimGhediNealHeppleston and http://www.facebook.com/BlackGoldOfTheSunMusic). He is also present on twitter at @ghediheppleston