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.

CONGO: ON THE BRINK

It perhaps came as no surprise to global affairs observers when the Supreme Court of the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday, 16th December 2011, confirmed the victory of the incumbent President Joseph Kabila following recent elections in the country.


Democratic Elections

The election of 28th November 2011 was the country’s second democratic elections in forty years. The first democratic election was held in 2006 and ushered in the presidency of Joseph Kabila. On that occasion, Joseph Kabila won a run-off poll having amassed 58% of the votes. However Mr. Kabila has been in charge since 2001 following the assassination of his Father, Laurent Kabila in the same year.


Supreme Court’s Decision

The Supreme Court President Jerome Kitoko rejected a challenge by the opposition to annul the election results and declared Mr Kabila winner with 48.95% of the votes. Mr Kabila’s main challengers Etienne Tshisekedi and Vital Kamerhe polled 32% and 7% respectively. Following the elections, Mr Tshisekedi voiced strongly his disapproval with what he thought was a flawed election process and has since proceeded to declare himself president. Mr Kamerhe on the other hand has indicated that he would mount a challenge against the results by way of court action.


Flawed Elections

International observers who followed the elections with eagle eyes trained on the electoral process have also loudly voiced their disapprovals with the election results. Following the publication of the results, the US State Department stated that the elections were “seriously flawed”. The US Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, James Entwistle proferred: “The US believes that the management and technical execution of these elections were seriously flawed”. The European Union (EU) also buttressed this assertion in adding that the election process was “chaotic”. The group of 26 teams of observers dispatched by the non-profit US based Carter Centre to monitor the elections also concluded that the results “lack credibility”.


Support for Kabila

Mr Kabila will however take heart from the fact that the African Union (AU), led by one of Africa’s numerous dictators, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of the Equatorial Guinea, concluded that the polls were “successful”. Leaders from Africa's Great Lakes region have also voiced support for President Joseph Kabila following the disputed poll results and urged Mr Kabila’s opponents to accept the result. Leaders from Burundi, Central African Republic, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia attended the meeting. In its statement to the press following the end of the two-day International Conference on the Great Lakes Region summit in Kampala, Uganda, the group congratulated the president of DRC on his re-election and urged “those not satisfied with the election results to accept them and work towards building the country".


Post-Election Violence

Prior to the elections, it was feared that civil unrest would result following its conclusion due to simmering tensions in the country. As expected, post election violence has unfortunately marred the ‘victory’ of Joseph Kabila. It has been reported that civilians have been killed in the aftermath, neighbourhoods set on fire, roads and public infrastructure have been destroyed, looting and a total breakdown of law and order is also widespread. Europe has also not emerged unscathed from the recent events in central Africa. It was reported last week that police in London were called upon to quell riots in the city sparked by protesters challenging the results of the elections. Scotland Yard reported that a total of 139 arrests were made in connection with offences including criminal violence, violent disorder and affray.


On the Brink of Civil War

Recent events are a setback to a nation which has been trapped in the vortex of conflict for decades which has resulted in the deaths of an estimated 4 million people. The end of the civil war in 2003 was expected to usher in a period of stability unknown to a large number of the population. Africa’s second largest country and the world’s twelfth largest country seems on the brink of a return to civil unrest and further bloodshed. It goes without saying that the country has been failed by its previous leaders. One wishes that its current leaders can steer the country towards a different path, but recent events seem to indicate that its previous and current leaders are cut from the same cloth. 1worldinternational certainly hopes that Laurent Kabila, Mr Kabila’s inner circle and the opposition leaders can prove us wrong.