The Presidential candidate of the governing Movement for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA, President Joao Lourenco has won re-election in the Angola presidential election slated for August 24.
Lourenco won 51.07 per cent of the total votes cast while his main challenger and Presidential candidate of the opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, UNITA, Adalberto Costa Junior garnered 44.05 per cent.
But Costa Junior has rejected the provisional results of the National Electoral Commission, NEC, alleging the process was marred by counting irregularities.
The spokesman of the electoral umpire, Lucas Quilundo said this while briefing reporters in Luanda, the Capital of Angola.
It would be recalled that the ruling party has maintained a 47-year grip on power besides the second mandate for Lourenco.
Further, Quilundo disclosed that the results were based on ballots counted from 97 per cent of polling stations and the final count shouldn’t result in any significant changes.
Also, MPLA spokesman Rui Falcao in a news conference added, “We won with an outright majority and any party that wins with a majority can only be happy. In every game, there are winners and losers. The winners must remain humble, while the losing side must accept defeat”.
However, the election was the most hotly contested in Africa’s second-biggest oil producer since a civil war that ended in 2002, with UNITA and its charismatic leader, Costa Junior tapping into widespread discontent over rampant poverty and unemployment to attract support. Despite the loss, political pundits said it was UNITA’s best election result since the end of the conflict. The rebel group-turned-opposition party also won the most votes in Luanda.