Angola votes for new president

By Omer Kilic

JOHANNESBURG

Angola Wednesday voted for a new president after retirement of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been serving the country as the head of the state for around 40 years.

Five opposition parties are competing in Wednesday’s election, while the results would be announced in the next two days.

But experts believe close contest is expected between People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the party which has won all elections since the country’s independence in 1975, and the main opposition party the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

The minimum voting age is 18 in the country, which has a population of approximately 28 million. There are 9 million registered voters, who would vote for the first time to elect their new leader since 1979.

The previous election in 2012 displayed MPLA’s landslide victory with 72 percent vote.

The outgoing leader, who has been a president of Angola for 38 years, made it clear that he would not be running in this year’s polls.

Civil war erupted in Angola, Africa’s second-best oil producer at present, after gaining independence from Spain in 1975.

Death of the UNITA’s leader Jonas Savimbi marked the end of 27-year civil war in 2002.