Angolan opposition leader says one-party state is ‘big cancer’ of society

LUANDA: The leader of Angola’s main opposition party UNITA accused the government on Sunday of establishing an undemocratic one-party state, and said contesting the result of this week’s election was not off the table. Angola is gearing up for a vote on Wednesday that is likely to be the tightest since the first multi-party election in 1992.

The MPLA, of current President Joao Lourenco, has governed the country since it won independence from Portugal in 1975. “It is a one-party regime, a big cancer that the country must get rid of,” UNITA leader Adalberto Costa Junior told Reuters in an interview, adding that the MPLA does not allow Angola to be a democracy. The country, Africa’s second-biggest oil producer, emerged from a 27-year civil war between the MPLA and UNITA in 2002. Some critics of the government have voiced concern the election may be tainted.

There are only 2,000 observers to cover a country twice the size of France, the final vote counting from all stations has been centralised in the capital Luanda, and some opinion polls have been restricted. The MPLA did not reply to a request for comment about election transparency and fraud.