By Norm Dixon
The people of Angola have decisively rebuffed the bid for power by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in presidential and parliamentary elections held on September 29 and 30. The ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) scored an absolute majority of votes for its presidential candidate and won 55% of the parliamentary vote against the UNITA's 33%.
Jonas Savimbi, UNITA's leader and unsuccessful presidential candidate, prior to the vote promised to respect the outcome. However, as soon as it became apparent that his party had lost the election, Savimbi accused the MPLA of fraud.
He threatened to resume the country's disastrous civil war and ordered his armed followers to withdraw from the newly formed Armed Forces of Angola. (This grouped members of the existing army and UNITA's guerilla wing into a single national army.) Reports of armed clashes between the opposing sides have come in from outlying provinces.
Most international observers agreed that the election was free and fair. Almost 5 million voters flocked to the polls to vote for 18 parties contesting the parliamentary election and 11 presidential candidates. Party symbols and photos of the candidates were printed on the ballot papers to help those voters unable to read.
The elections were the culmination of a 17-month peace process following the signing of peace accords between the Angolan government and UNITA in Lisbon in May 1991. The accords were overseen by the US, Portugal and the Soviet Union. Angola had been wracked by civil war since 1975.
During the election campaign, Savimbi was confidently predicting that UNITA would win 60% of the vote in the belief that the terrible state of the country caused by years of civil war would redound on the MPLA. Savimbi and his US and South African backers believed that the "Nicaragua scenario" would be repeated in Angola.
As in Nicaragua, the US sought to portray the contra forces as "freedom fighters" struggling for "multiparty democracy". In reality they were an undisciplined, mercenary army with an awful human rights record, almost totally dependent on military and political aid from the US and its allies. Hundreds of million of dollars have been funnelled into UNITA's coffers by the US and its allies.
Up to 1 million people have been killed in the civil war. There are 2 million displaced people. The United Nations estimated that the war has cost Angola over A$40 billion. Road, rail and communications have been systematically destroyed. Invasions by South Africa in support of UNITA between 1975 and 1981 alone caused almost $8 billion ied 7 million out of Angola's population of 10.5 million people access to basic health services and clean water supplies.
Before UNITA revolted against the newly independent nation's government in 1975, Angola was self-sufficient in food and the world's fourth biggest exporter of diamonds and coffee. Those industries have been shattered. The war swallowed up to 70% of the government's income and forced it into a debt now estimated at US$10 billion. The bill would much greater if it was not for the oil industry, which generates $2 billion per annum in export revenue.
However, Angola's voters proved far more sophisticated than Savimbi and his US and South African backers had reckoned. A majority placed the blame for their country's plight firmly on the shoulders of Savimbi.
UNITA's support was largely restricted to its base within the Ovimbundu ethnic group, which accounts for 40% of the population and is concentrated in the south and centre. Despite this the MPLA seems to have done surprisingly well in the central areas, keeping pace with votes cast for Savimbi, according to a BBC report. UNITA received US government funds of $30 million during the period before the election.