LUANDA - Angola’s ruling party on Monday was declared the winner of the general election, but it was its weakest showing in the five elections that have taken place since the country gained independence.
The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, the liberation army turned political party that has governed Angola since the end of Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, won 51.17 percent of the vote, the country’s electoral commission announced.
UNITA said it planned to challenge the result, but the electoral commission dismissed calls for a recount.
Angola’s oil production capacity, at times the largest in Africa this year but usually behind Nigeria’s, will remain under one party’s control.
President Lourenco’s MPLA won 51.07% of the vote against the main opposition’s 44.05% while also nabbing 56% of 220 legislative seats, enough to remain in charge of the policies that steer the country’s wealth of 9 billion barrels of crude oil reserves and 11 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.
The wealth does not often go around the country, however. Angola’s poverty rate is estimated at 40% by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, a policy center of the University of Oxford.
More than half of Angola’s workforce is unemployed.
