[Kaspar]

Angola Moves to Make President Stronger
By CELIA W. DUGGER

JOHANNESBURG — Angola’s Parliament approved a new Constitution on Thursday that will further concentrate power in the hands of President José Eduardo dos Santos, who for the past 30 years has governed a nation that is rich in oil and diamonds, but whose people are mostly poor.

Under the new Constitution, Mr. dos Santos, 67, will not have to be directly voted into office by the populace. Instead, the president will be selected by the victorious party in parliamentary elections.

Mr. dos Santos’s party, the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, known as the M.P.L.A., dominates Parliament and controls the state media and a lode of oil-fueled patronage. The party won more than 80 percent of the vote in 2008 from a public relieved that decades of war were over and that a measure of political stability prevailed.

The next round of parliamentary elections is due in 2012, and the new Constitution, which is expected to win the required approval of the Constitutional Court, allows Mr. dos Santos to serve two more five-year terms. It also authorizes him to select a vice president.

Mihaela Webba, a law professor at Methodist University in Luanda, the capital, said Mr. dos Santos now appointed the vice president and controlled the electoral machinery and the selection of all the party’s parliamentary candidates, “so the accountability in this situation is nonexistent.”

“Now the president controls everything,” Professor Webba said.

Some political analysts speculated that the M.P.L.A. decided to do away with direct presidential elections because of concerns that Mr. dos Santos would win a smaller share of the votes than his party did in 2008, weakening his authority.

“Personally, I think it would have been good if Parliament had been strengthened and it was a less presidential system,” said Markus Weimer, a research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, a nonprofit research group.

“When you have a strong Parliament, there are more checks and balances, and it maybe instills a culture of building bridges rather than single-handedly deciding things,” Mr. Weimer said.

Angola, which emerged from 27 years of civil war in 2002, had its first elections in 16 years in 2008. In the peaceful, if flawed, contest, the main opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or Unita, which was the M.P.L.A.’s enemy in wartime, was thoroughly routed.

On her visit to Angola last year, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised the 2008 elections, but also encouraged the country to hold presidential elections and investigate human rights abuses, while emphasizing the need for improved government.

Angola has an international reputation as a country plagued by staggering amounts of high-level graft. Pope Benedict XVI said on his visit to the country last March that Angola and Africa needed “to excise corruption.”

From the New York Times.

So I guess Pofo's authoritarian camp should be happy to hear this.

[Okonkwo]

The limiting of presidential terms to two five-year terms was definitely a good idea, even though discounting dos Santos' 30-year term is quite ridiculous, even a bit hypocritical.
Of course the extension of the president's powers are controversial, any claims that the new constitution is anything but a decrease in democracy would be an outright lie. By abolishing the presidential ballot and concentrating so much power on dos Santos it has done precisely the opposite. Angola's political elite should be opposed, mainly on the grounds that itt does not even attempt to address the issue of rampant corruption - a new constitution will do nothing to change that fact.

[Kapanda]

Angola's political elite should be opposed, mainly on the grounds that itt does not even attempt to address the issue of rampant corruption - a new constitution will do nothing to change that fact.

Not totally true.

I don't agree with this rule neither. Right now, Jose Eduardo dos Santos is Angola.

However, he has recently made significant remarks with regards to fighting corruption. Though not exactly a scientific study, those that I have spoken to in Angola believe he will tackle the issue.

Corruption is the only thing standing between Angola and development.

[Okonkwo]

However, he has recently made significant remarks with regards to fighting corruption.

Do you have a source for that?
It would be rather interesting to see in what way Angola's political elite would attempt to dismantle corruption.

Jose Eduardo dos Santos is Angola.

Could you elaborate a bit more on that?

[Kapanda]

Do you have a source for that?
It would be rather interesting to see in what way Angola's political elite would attempt to dismantle corruption.

http://tv1.rtp.pt/noticias/index.php?t= ... ut=10&tm=7

I'm sorry, I couldn't find any English ones.

Could you elaborate a bit more on that?

At any and all levels, what Mr Dos Santos says, goes. This indirect voting system, for example, was his idea. The President himself is unpopular among the masses, but the party received over 80% of the votes in the last election. But Dos Santos, throughout the years, has been able to keep a tight hold of the party controls. No one from within the party fronts the President, and no one from outside the party has any means to do so.

[Okonkwo]

I'm sorry, I couldn't find any English ones.

No problem, I have some rudimentary grasp on Portuguese. Thank you very much for the link.

The President himself is unpopular among the masses, but the party received over 80% of the votes in the last election.

How would you then explain that large number of votes in the face of dos Santos' unpopularity? Do you completely discount UNITA as an opposition party the electorate could have supported and if so, why?

[Kapanda]

How would you then explain that large number of votes in the face of dos Santos' unpopularity? Do you completely discount UNITA as an opposition party the electorate could have supported and if so, why?

MPLA came out the victor from a recent, long and brutal civil war, and the main opposition party came out losers, badly.

The President might be unpopular - since he's on top, it's his fault that the country suffers so much (corruption in Angola is ridiculous). But if it's between MPLA, who won the war, who gave the people whatever little they may have, and the only feasible opposition, UNITA, who are the murderous self-centred losers of the recent civil war, the choice is clear.

Now, the other question would be why there are no other real opposition parties, which I actually never thought to think about until now. But I would quickly guess that there just hasn't been enough time to raise a respectful opposition to the establishment yet.

[Okonkwo]

I did not know that the UNITA was that unpopular - it must have been the Cold War propaganda of the defiant, anti-communist heroes that mislead me.
The story of the MPLA is of course one that is to be seen in many African countries, where a revolutionary movement was successful in defeating colonialism but turned corrupt as soon as it gained power. Unfortunately they can still benefit from the people viewing them as liberators. The Cold War really was a tragedy of a grand scale for Africa.

But I would quickly guess that there just hasn't been enough time to raise a respectful opposition to the establishment yet.

Do you think that there is the possibility of a new opposition party's rise if the MPLA and dos Santos fail to fight corruption and end economic injustice? The MPLA do seem quite entrenched in their position of power.

[Kapanda]

There's no talk about it... I mean, opposition parties are there, but not really taken seriously...

But it's probably the likely course the country's politics will take. I'm saying that simply because I'm assuming it to be natural. Once memories of war become a bit older, people will loosen their favouritism for the incumbents.

But it won't happen any time soon.