Angola Elections:The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Once Again, Angolans made  history-with an orderly manner and with a high degree of civility during the 2012 general elections, Angolans showed that they are determined to write their own story of consolidation of democracy and national political stability. 

The MPLA has emerged as the big winner of the general elections of 2012 , with a majority of more than 75 percent of the votes casted. 

UNITA has aslo confirmed its status as the second political force and has a large increase since the elections of 2008, where it obtained only 10.39 percent-the final result could see them with 17 percent.
The bigest losers of  these elections is the HOME-EC coalition. 

The coalition paid dearly to have used negative rhetoric-xenophobia targeting migrant workers and using the late warlord Jonas Savimbi as their role model, it backfired on them big-time.
The leader of the coalition,Abel Chivukuvuku made ​​threats of retaliation against public employees and emigrants, while clinging dangerously on the image and discourse of Jonas Savimbi. The vice president of HOME-EC André Gaspar Mendes de Carvalho, also contributed to the defeat by using the media  to politicize the Angolan Armed Forces into buying the phony vision.

The biggest downfall of HOME-EC was when they announced that they had signed an agreement with one of the vice-presidents of the coalition and a well known priest of Congo territory- whereby a government led by Abel Chivukuvuku would promote a referendum on independence for the province of Cabinda.
To many Angolans, HOME-EC behavior was total political irresponsibility, this united Angolans and especially independent voters-others went for UNITA. 

The vast majority of voters went to the polls and the analysis done of the first interim results of the general elections was that, Angolans want to continue to keep the country on the path of economic and social development, consolidate peace and strengthen democracy.

As the president-Elect, Jose Eduardo dos Santos said on Friday, after exercising his right to vote; "democracy is the power of the people and now the people have the power in their hands to choose leaders who will govern Angola the next five years." 

In a democracy the elections are the only legitimate means of winning power and after the 2008 elections Angola has made a big step forward to achieving some semblance of democracy. 

The National Electoral Commission and the Angolans in general, are to be congratulated because the voting process took place within the normal range. They deserve the praise as compared to the 2008 elections, they overcame the incompetence of organising civilised  elections .