Elections in Angola take place within the framework of a multi-party democracy. The

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 rep ...

is directly elected by voters, while the leader of the party or coalition with the most seats in the National Assembly automatically becomes President.

Electoral history

Although Angola had sent representatives to the Portuguese Parliament in the early 19th century, it was not until the 1920s that the Portuguese authorities consented to the creation of a legislative body in the territory. In 1922 a Legislative Council was established, elected by Portuguese settlers. However, the Council was suppressed following the 1926 coup in Portugal. In 1955 a new Legislative Council was established, although only those officially classed as "civilised" were allowed to vote. This effectively limited the franchise to European settlers, most mulattos and a small number of Europeanised Africans (''

Assimilados Assimilado is the term given to African subjects of the colonizing Portuguese Empire from the 1910s to the 1960s, who had reached a level of "civilization", according to Portuguese legal standards, that theoretically qualified them for full right ...

''). In May 1972 the Portuguese parliament passed the Organic Law for the Overseas Territories, which provided for greater autonomy for overseas territories; this created a 53-member Legislative Assembly for Angola, of which 32 would be elected, with the remainder nominated by public services, religious groups and business groups.

Elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative ...

were held in March 1973, but due to continued restrictions on suffrage, only 584,000 people registered to vote out of a total population of 5,673,046. Around 86% of those registered cast votes, and the elected members included 29 Europeans and 24 Africans. Following independence in 1975, the outbreak of the

Angolan Civil War The Angolan Civil War ( pt, Guerra Civil Angolana) was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002. The war immediately began after Angola became independent from Portugal in November 1975. The war was ...

delayed the country's first post-independence elections until 1980. By then, the MPLA had created a one-party state. It organised

indirect elections Indirect, the opposite of direct, may refer to: *Indirect approach, a battle strategy *Indirect DNA damage, caused by UV-photons *Indirect agonist or indirect-acting agonist, a substance that enhances the release or action of an endogenous neurotra ...

, in which voters elected carefully vetted candidates to electoral colleges, who in turn elected the National Assembly. The next elections were due to be held in 1983, but they were delayed until 1986 due to the ongoing war. When they were held, it was under the same indirect system. The Bicesse Accords ended the civil war in 1991 and saw the introduction of multi-party democracy.

General elections A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

were held in 1992, with the President being elected by the public for the first time. The MPLA won 129 of the 220 seats in the

, whilst

UNITA The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ( pt, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, abbr. UNITA) is the second-largest political party in Angola. Founded in 1966, UNITA fought alongside the Popular Movement for ...

emerged as the main opposition party with 70 seats.

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 ...

of the MPLA and Jonas Savimbi of UNITA received the most votes in the first round of the presidential elections, but Savimbi claimed the election had been rigged, despite

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

observers stating that they had been mostly free and fair. He refused to participate in the runoff, and restarted the civil war. The civil war ended in 2002 following Savimbi's death. However,

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative ...

were delayed until 2008. The MPLA received over 80% of the vote, winning 191 of the 220 seats in the National Assembly. Presidential elections were scheduled for 2009, but a new constitution promulgated in 2010 scrapped direct elections for the presidency, with the leader of the largest party in the National Assembly automatically becoming president. The next elections in 2012 saw another landslide victory for the MPLA, although their vote share was reduced to 72% and they lost 16 seats.

Electoral system

President

The 1992 constitution provided for the direct election of the president. However, this was abolished by the 2010 constitution, which in Article 109 states that "the individual heading the national list of the political party or coalition of political parties that receives the most votes in the general election shall be elected President of the Republic and Head of the Executive".

National Assembly

The electoral system for the National Assembly is based on the electoral law passed on 1 November 1991.Electoral system
IPU The 220 members are elected in two ways: 90 are elected from 18 five-seat constituencies using and 130 from a single nationwide constituency, both using closed list

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 ...

. 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 ...

is used for seat allocation in the provincial constituencies and a simple quota

largest remainder method The largest remainder method (also known as Hare–Niemeyer method, Hamilton method or as Vinton's method) is one way of allocating seats proportionally for representative assemblies with party list voting systems. It contrasts with variou ...

is used for the nationwide constituency.Articles 27.2 and 27.3 of the Electoral Law
Lei n.º 36/11 de 21 de Dezembro
/ref> Voters must be at least 18 years old and hold Angolan citizenship. They can be disqualified by having an undischarged bankruptcy or criminal conviction, being declared insane, or holding dual nationality. Candidates must be at least 35 years old and hold Angolan citizenship. Members of the government, judiciary and armed forces and chairs of boards of state-owned companies are ineligible for election.

Parliamentary election results

References

External links

Angola
Adam Carr's Election Archive

African Elections Database {{Angola topics