Angola: 1992 Elections

Extracted from: "Angola" IN Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa (2002), edited by Tom Lodge, Denis Kadima and David Pottie, EISA, 18-20.

More than nine months went by after the signing of the Bicesse Accords before agreement was reached (in March-April 1992) on the electoral process and related matters. Apart from the MPLA [Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola], UNITA [União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola] and the FNLA [Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola], many other parties participated in the negotiations. This was followed by the president's announcements that the presidential and legislative (National Assembly) elections would take place concurrently on 29 and 30 September 1992. The members of the new National Electoral Council (NEC) and the director-general of the Elections were appointed early in May. Dr Antonio Caetano de Sousa, a supreme court judge, was to chair a rather large and unwieldy NEC, while Dr Onofre dos Santos, a lawyer from Portugal but an Angolan by birth, was to be the new director-general in charge of elections.

The registration of voters commenced on 20 May 1992. Because of the bad roads extensive use had to be made of air transport. As too few aircraft were available the South African Air Force supplied helicopters and fixed-wing planes (with crews) to transport NEC staff and UNAVEM observers. It became evident that many potential voters in remote areas would go unregistered unless the registration facilities were brought to them. When the process was completed, on 10 August, after the deadline had been extended, some 4.8 million persons, or an estimated 92% of the eligible voters, had been registered. The results confirmed what had generally been expected. Almost 40% of the registered voters resided in the Ovimbundu and UNITA-dominated provinces of Benguela, Bié, Huambo and Huila, and nearly 30% in Luanda and the adjacent Kimbundu-speaking provinces of Bengo, Kwanza Norte and Malanje - all four provinces being the government's traditional support areas. Only 30% of the prospective voters were to be found in the other 10 provinces, including Kwanza Sul (7.5%) and Uige (6.5%) where both the government and UNITA claimed strong support. Undoubtedly, these numbers contributed to the UNITA leader's firm belief that his party would win both elections and to his rejection of the concept of a national unity government, proposed by President dos Santos in a public speech.

In August the constitution was amended to delete words such as "people's" from the country's name and from the names of state institutions. This added official sanction to the abandonment of Marxism-Leninism. The country was now officially known as the Republic of Angola. By then the MPLA had already removed the suffix Workers' Party (PT) from its name and was now preaching the virtues of democratic socialism and of a "mixed economy" based on market forces. UNITA presented itself as the real champion of the urban workers and the rural peasants, propagating basically the same policies as the MPLA and the other parties, though it also urged Ovimbundu voters to place the country under Ovimbundu rule.

Electioneering was permitted 30 days days prior to the election, for the election campaigns of the presidential candidates and the parties whose lists of candidates had been accepted by the NEC. The candidates contesting the presidential election were José Eduardo dos Santos and Jonas Savimbi, the two political heavyweights, along with FNLA leader Holden Roberto and eight others. The FNLA, MPLA and UNITA were also among the 18 parties contesting the legislative elections, including. Most of the smaller parties were led by largely unknown politicians. Some of them had a strong urban bias, being based in Luanda, and lacked coherent alternative policies. Constrained by a lack of resources and logistical handicaps, they were no match for the ruling MPLA and the militant UNITA, both of which were demonstrating their capacity to campaign throughout the country.

Attempts to introduce a code of conduct for the political parties failed because the government refused to subject itself to it. The opposition parties demanded that not only the MPLA, but also the government should sign the code. As could be expected, the MPLA found various ways to state its case through the government-controlled media and could afford to hire a Brazilian public relations firm to handle its publicity. Although all parties were allotted equal time on radio and television, UNITA had the advantage of having its own radio station and newspaper. However, many of the smaller parties showed an inability to use their radio time effectively. Reportedly, much was done by the NEC, UNAVEM and some of the NGOs to promote voter education. Plays in local languages were, for example, staged in the streets to get the message across, a method that made great impact on the public.

Whilst the campaigning and the preparations for the elections were generally proceeding peacefully and according to schedule, the demobilization of soldiers were lagging behind. There were various reasons for this, a major one being the mistrust of each other displayed by the MPLA government and the UNITA leadership. A much larger proportion of FALA soldiers than MPLA/FAPLA soldiers remained under arms. As a result, the country had three armies at the time of the elections: the remaining armed sections of FAPLA and FALA and the fledgling, unified national army (FAA), consisting of less than 10 000 soldiers (substantially less than those remaining in the other two forces).

Despite these ominous signs, the elections went ahead because it was hoped that the advent of a democratic dispensation would remove the mistrust and encourage demilitarization. It would only later transpire that neither the Observer Countries nor UNAVEM had any contingency plans should the peace process be derailed by military action on the part of the two main adversaries.