Angola 2003_2004. Waiting for elections

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As shown in table 4.1, MPLA and UNITA dominated the contest on both elections, capturing together close to 90 per cent of the vote and relegating the other parties to an almost insignificant role. Some analysts believe that the concentration of the vote on the two main parties would have been even larger, had it not been for a flaw in the design of the presidential ballot (leading to thousands of votes for José Eduardo dos Santos to be counted as votes for António Alberto Neto or Honorato Lando) and for a number of illiterate UNITA supporters erroneously selecting PLD on the parliamentary ballot, thinking that UNITA candidates occupied the same position in both ballots. This analysis is supported by the comparison of the performance of each party (see table 4.1 above) in both elections. Two features of the election results are particularly noteworthy. One is the poor performance of Holden Roberto, and his party the FNLA. Their ethnic power base, the Bakongo, is thought to represent some 10 to 15 per cent of the population – yet they received less than 3 per cent of the vote. The other important result is the relative success of the PRS, whose ethnic power base in among the Chokwe, who predominate in the Lunda North and Lunda Sul provinces of Northeast Angola. Thanks to the rules of composition of the Parliament, PRS was able to elect 6 MPs and thus emerge as the third largest party in Parliament, although it had got slightly fewer votes than FNLA and PLD. The 1991 Constitutional law provides for 90 of the 220 seats in Parliament to be allocated to representatives of the Provinces, on a uniform basis of 5 seats for each province, irrespective of population size. The distribution of those seats, which constitute the so-called Provincial Circle, gives some indication of the regional/ethnic political power bases. Table 4.2: Distribution of Members of Parliament elected by the provincial circles, by party of affiliation Province MPLA UNITA PRS FNLA Benguela 2 3 Bengo 4 1 Bié 5 Cabinda 4 1 Huambo 1 4 Huíla 4 1 Kuando-Kubango 1 4 Kuanza-Sul 4 1 Kuanza-Norte 5 Kunene 5 Luanda 4 1 Lunda-Norte 3 1 1 Lunda-Sul 3 2 Malange 5 Moxico 4 1 Namibe 4 1 Uíge 3 2 Zaire 2 1 2 All Provincial circles 58 27 3 2

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