confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Angola: promise or problem?
Blue Lines
A year before next year's general elections, Angola is balanced between a
'promising' and a 'problematic state', according to Abel Chivukuvuku, leader of an
opposition coalition which claims to be the country's fastest growing
political movement, the Convergência Ampla de Salvação de
Angola-Coligação Eleitoral. A former lieutenant of long-time rebel
leader Jonas Savimbi, who was
killed in 2002, Chivukuvuku founded CASA-CE in 2012 in a bid to break
Angola's political logjam.
As economic pressures mount, the governing MPLA lacks the money to
win over the electors, said Chivukuvuku at London's Chatham House
think-tank on 1 August. Recent clashes between supporters of the MPLA
and UNITA point to a resurgence of rivalries as the political payola
machine grinds to a halt. In Benguela, UNITA activists disarmed the
police and used their weapons against them. Nonetheless, UNITA has been
coopted into the post-war political system and is unlikely to revert to
military opposition, Chivukuvuku says.
Halting the economic slide is the problem for the MPLA, adds
Chivukuvuku, and its congress on 17-20 August will see fresh demands
for a more equitable share-out of state resources. Some of that
pressure will be directed towards President José Eduardo dos Santos and family,
after he announced this year his plans to retire from politics in 2018,
just after the elections. The problem with that, says Chivukuvuku, is
there is no trusted successor in waiting.
