Featured Photo: picture of country from Google Maps, owned by Google. I edited the Angolan flag in the corner.
Angola is a country located in Southern Africa with a long coast along the south of the Atlantic Ocean, the country was a Portuguese colony until it gained its independence in 1975 after a long and bloody civil war, that was re-ignited from 1992-2002 and still haunts the country until this day, with tensions still existing between the two rival factions, the MPLA (The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) and UNITA (The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), as well as displaced peoples, failing and destroyed infrastructure and a weak economy.
Angola’s capital city is Luanda, located along the coast, with it being a port city and containing a number of historical landmarks from its colonial history. Angola is bordered by 3 countries (4 if you count its exclave), they are Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Namibia, its Cabinda exclave is bordered by both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo, as well as having a small coast along the Atlantic. The exclave has often been a thorn in Angola’s side, with it hungering for independence. The country maintains a weak currency called the Angolan kwanza and the country’s population is just under 30 million as of 2017.
Government Type
The latest constitution was adopted in 2010, which saw more powers going to the President as well as direct election of the president being abolished and the Prime Ministerial position also being abolished, thus making Angola a Presidential Republic. The main opposition, UNITA, saw these changes to the constitution as a removal of democracy and a solidifying of the MPLA’s dominating position in politics. The MPLA has been the dominant party since winning the country’s civil war back in 1975, after winning, the MPLA turned the country into a one-party Marxist-Leninist state lead by the MPLA until a new constitution was adopted in 1992 that allowed multiple parties and became a Republic, with their being separate elections for president and to elect the countries parliament who decided on legislation.
After the MPLA won elections in 1992 a new bloody civil war developed between the two rivals, the MPLA and UNITA and went on until 2002 where UNITA’s leader, Jonas Savimbi, was killed in action.
Currently the country only has a Presidential position and a publicly elected unicameral National Assembly. The President is in-directly elected with only the election of the unicameral National Assembly being public.
The Executive Government
The executive government includes the President of Angola who is both Head of State and Head of Government as well as Commander-in-Chief of Angola’s armed forces. The President has almost absolute power to appoint and dismiss pretty much any executive position in government, courts, military and authority, which is with obvious reason seen as totalitarian and corrupt. Alongside that is the Council of Ministers, appointed by the President and presided over by him, discussing internal affairs and the implementation of legislation passed by the National Assembly. The only position that the President is unable to appoint is the Vice-President, which is automatically given to the person in the largest party who came 2nd on the parties list of candidates.
Since the position of Prime Minister was abolished in the newly adopted constitution in 2010, as can be seen from above the president took over control of what would have been the Prime Minister’s job as Head of Government.
Having so much power in one person’s hand is often denounced by the country’s main opposition party, UNITA.
The Legislative Government
The Legislative government is made up by a publicly elected 220-member National Assembly, making it a Unicameral party with only one equal house, rather than two separate houses, with one ranking above the other. The country is multi-party and so the majority of those elected to the National Assembly by the public are from said parties, with the two dominant parties since independence being the MPLA and UNITA, two civil war rivals.
The National Assembly is charged with creating and debating on legislation and either voting it down or moving it on to the executive government who will implement it into the country’s law.
The largest party leads the country’s government with the President and Vice-President indirectly elected based on party list positions. The National Assembly lost a lot of its power to the President after the adoption of the new 2010 constitution.
The Electoral Process
Legislative elections are meant to be held in Angola every 5 years, but this has often been shaky at best, with the constitution being changed or elections being postponed for various reasons, such as civil wars or due to major constitutional change or other reasons. The country is an early democracy and so problems like this are not uncommon but it is increasingly being seen as authoritarian by the main opposition UNITA party as well as by the wider international community. Since the legislative elections indirectly elect the president, that also technically means he has a 5-year term, by constitution, one person can serve as president for two 5-year terms before they must step aside.
The 220 members of the unicameral National Assembly are elected in two different ways, 90 of the members are elected from 18 different multi-seat constituencies using the D’Hondt method, which is a type of proportional representation, the other 130 members are elected countrywide through the largest remainder method, another form of proportional representation. In both multi-seat constituencies and nationwide, the candidates are chosen from closed lists and so people are unable to specifically vote for a single candidate.
As a reminder if you have not read my previous blogposts, proportional representation reflects the percentages parties attain in election, to the National Assembly, meaning all votes count, but since total proportional representation isn’t possible, there are different methods and formulas for calculating it, with some considered fairer than others and vice versa, for example many consider the D’Hondt method to be one of the least effective at implementing fair proportional representation.
The President is in-directly elected based on the outcome of legislative elections, from the largest party, the candidate who is at the top of that party’s list, automatically becomes president, with a Vice-President being given to that who is 2nd on the party’s list.
To vote people have to have Angolan citizenship and be over the age of 18. People who have undischarged bankruptcies, criminal convictions, people that are declared as insane or people who have dual nationality can be barred from voting, some of these conditions are seen as undemocratic.
Thank you for reading this blogpost and I hope you enjoyed and/or learned something from it! Next up will be the Caribbean islands of Antigua & Barbuda!
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