General elections were held in

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

on 23 August 2017 to elect the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

and

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

, although voting was delayed until 26 August at 15 polling stations due to bad weather on election day. The top candidate of the winning party is elected president. The ruling party MPLA headed by João Lourenço was widely expected to win. Preliminary results show that MPLA won with a clear margin. The final results were released on 6 September 2017.

Background

Initially it was thought that long-time president

José Eduardo dos Santos José Eduardo dos Santos (; 28 August 1942 – 8 July 2022) was the president of Angola from 1979 to 2017. As president, dos Santos was also the commander-in-chief of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and president of the People's Movement for ...

would lead the ruling

MPLA The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola ( pt, Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, abbr. MPLA), for some years called the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola – Labour Party (), is an Angolan left-wing, social d ...

into the election before possibly stepping down in 2018, but in December 2016 the MPLA designated

João Lourenço João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço (born 5 March 1954) is an Angolan politician, who has served as the president of Angola since 26 September 2017. Previously, he was Minister of Defence from 2014 to 2017. In September 2018, he became the Cha ...

, the minister of defense and vice-president of the MPLA, as the party's top candidate and therefore its presidential candidate. Lourenço was viewed as strongly loyal to dos Santos. Bornito de Sousa was designated as the party's vice-presidential candidate. In April 2017, the Council of the Republic, which acts as an advisory body to the president, proposed holding the election on 23 August 2017. It was announced on 26 April that dos Santos had formally approved the proposed date. In early July 2017, National Electoral Commission (CNE) stated that it was expecting 3,000 national and international election observers in the country during the elections. On 21 July 2017, the National Assembly approved legislation that would keep top security officials (the chiefs of the army, police and intelligence) in place for eight years, thereby preventing presidents from choosing the occupants of those posts at will. The official campaign period ran from 22 July to 21 August.

Electoral system

The 220 members of the

are elected by two methods; 130 are elected by

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some inf ...

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

in a single nationwide constituency, with seats allocated proportionally. 90 are elected in 18 five-seat constituencies, using the

d'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest- ...

.Electoral system
IPU Voters must be at least 18 years old and not have an undischarged bankruptcy, criminal conviction, dual citizenship or have been declared insane. Candidates must be at least 35 years old. The president is elected by

first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

double simultaneous vote Double simultaneous vote (DSV) is an electoral system in which multiple offices – such as the president and members of a legislature – are elected through a single vote cast for a party. It can be combined with other electoral systems; in Uru ...

for the same term as the assembly, and may serve a maximum of two terms. Each participating party nominates a presidential candidate as top of its list, who must be clearly identified on the ballot paper. The top candidate of the party receiving the most votes is elected president in accordance with the

2010 constitution The Constitution of Kenya is the supreme lawof the Republic of Kenya. There have been three significant versions of the constitution, with the most recent redraft being enabled in 2010. The 2010 edition replaced the 1963 independence constitu ...

Results

Preliminary results released shortly after the election showed the MPLA with 64.8% of the vote. Final results released by the electoral commission on 6 September 2017 showed the MPLA receiving 61% of the vote, giving it a parliamentary majority of 150 out of 220 seats and ensuring that João Lourenço would become president.

Opposition appeal

On 27 August Samakuva challenged the election results. On 8 September, UNITA filed a lawsuit claiming evidence of voter fraud. However, the Constitutional Court rejected the opposition's appeal on 13 September. It was announced that Lourenço would be sworn in on 26 September 2017.

References

{{Angolan elections

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

2017 in Angola August 2017 events in Africa Elections in Angola