Angola: “Either MPLA democratizes itself or ends with democracy; or democracy will end it”
As another year came to an end, democracy in Angola was carefully folded like a handkerchief and prominently featured in the chest pocket of its ruler’s jacket. The folding took place at the ruling Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA) 5th party congress in December, where it was expected that the conclave would send a strong signal on the course of democracy in the country, given that the democratic mandate of the current government expired in 1996, and that due to the war between 1998 and 2002 elections were postponed until peaceful days arrived. But as 2004 begins and almost two years into peace, there are no signs of even a date for elections that will set the normalization of State institutions in motion.
On December 09 at the party congress, the president of MPLA and only candidate, José Eduardo dos Santos, was re-elected for another five-year term, unanimously and by acclamation not by vote. When it came to suggestions for a fair democratic process by secret ballot only the president voted in favour of such a procedure. The other delegates, more than 1400 of them, voted for acclamation. There was only a single abstention.
* Read the rest of this article by clicking on the link below.
Angola: “Either MPLA democratizes itself or ends with democracy; or democracy will end it”
Rafael Marques
As another year came to an end, democracy in Angola was carefully folded like a handkerchief and prominently featured in the chest pocket of its ruler’s jacket. The folding took place at the ruling Movement for the Popular Liberation of Angola (MPLA) 5th party congress in December, where it was expected that the conclave would send a strong signal on the course of democracy in the country, given that the democratic mandate of the current government expired in 1996, and that due to the war between 1998 and 2002 elections were postponed until peaceful days arrived. But as 2004 begins and almost two years into peace, there are no signs of even a date for elections that will set the normalization of State institutions in motion.
On December 09 at the party congress, the president of MPLA and only candidate, José Eduardo dos Santos, was re-elected for another five-year term, unanimously and by acclamation not by vote. When it came to suggestions for a fair democratic process by secret ballot only the president voted in favour of such a procedure. The other delegates, more than 1400 of them, voted for acclamation. There was only a single abstention.
For elections to the central committee of the party, the only contending list was “blocked”. This was an expression repeatedly used by MPLA members to justify the electoral method of not allowing debates on the final list submitted by a working group, led by the president, to scrutiny. Dos Santos also chaired the commission that assessed the merits of candidates to posts in the party. MPLA has been in power since independence in 1975, and though it has formally abandoned its communist past, its party structures have not discarded the methods. On the contrary, it has refined them, in crude terms. The only novelty of the congress was the nomination, by Dos Santos, of a vice-president and a new secretary-general of MPLA. Of course, the Central Committee ratified the president’s choices.
Even though the congress has granted more powers to Dos Santos, if there were any left outside of his control, the creation of the vice-president post has induced people to think that this might be a way for him to groom a successor. Dos Santos has been President of Angola since 1979, following the death of first president Agostinho Neto. To this date he has never experienced any sort of rule by democratic vote and even failed to win the 1992 presidential elections. He is also known to throw into political disgrace anyone, from his own party or in government, who dares to covet his place, to exercise real power, or outgrow him in popularity. It is remarkable how he sacrifices MPLA secretary-generals and prime ministers alike.
His choice for MPLA vice-president is the barely known and current minister of Public Administration, Employment and Social Security, António Pitra Neto. Angola has an endemically corrupt and dysfunctional public administration, in which hardly any bureaucratic activity takes place without a bribe. It has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. Above 60% of the adult labour force is out of work, and social security in the country is little more than an insult for the poor. On taking up his post, Mr. Pitra Neto clarified his role to the State daily Jornal de Angola: “It is to assist the president of the party, and we shall seek to comply, on a daily basis, with the orders of the president.”
In 2002, the president reiterated that he would step down from the presidency at the time of elections. In essence, by not setting the date for elections, which is his prerogative, the president can accomplish another presidential term without having to break his promise to step down. By all accounts now, elections might not take place before 2005. Even 2006 looks like a fading hope.
The MPLA has already declared that a new constitution will only be finalized by the end of 2004, and only then will the new electoral law and other supporting bills be drafted. If the constitutional reform is taking over five years, keeping the public at bay of the process, will the other necessary laws take less than six months? How long would it take then, at MPLA and Dos Santos’s current pace, to prepare the country for elections?
Where does the opposition stand? After the decapitation of its leadership in February 2002, the second largest political organisation, former rebel movement the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), has quieted down. It has become an extension of Dos Santos’ strategy to cling to power at all costs, a docile opposition that endorses the absolute ruler’s position. Distinguished members of UNITA call such a stand “a political party with State responsibilities.”
What remains a challenge to this dictatorial and soporiferous environment are the roles played by the independent media and some isolated political and civil society initiatives. This is the reason why the government has recently forbidden, in threatening terms, the broadcasting of the Catholic-run Rádio Ecclésia in another six provinces, where it has already set up studios and FM repeaters.
Dos Santos’s consolidation of his absolute rule has fallen short of regaining control of public opinion in the capital Luanda, where a third of the Angolan population of 12 million people live. It has happened thanks in part to Rádio Ecclésia’s policy of giving voice to the voiceless. Notwithstanding, all the government’s attempts to clamp down on the freedom of the press have backfired due to unprecedented internal and external pressure. If Rádio Ecclésia waves reach out to the rest of the country, then the current regime will be further pressed under the increasing weight of public opinion. Ironically, the most serious threat to power is a growing choir of voices that the security apparatus is no longer able to silence.
A leading Angolan writer and political analyst, José Eduardo Agualusa, on the eve of the MPLA congress resuming its foreseen outcome of non-democracy, stated that the MPLA would hardly survive in a democracy. “Either MPLA democratizes itself or ends with democracy; or democracy will end it.”
* Rafael Marques is an Angolan journalist
* Please send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa -
to [email protected]
More information:
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=18730
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=18638