JOHANNESBURG (AP) – Angola’s ruling party has won the national election but lost ground to the opposition, the electoral commission said Friday, as the oil-rich but impoverished African nation faces its first change of leadership after nearly four decades.
Defense Minister Joao Lourenco will replace President Jose Eduardo dos Santos after 38 years in power. The victory for the ruling MPLA party represents continuity, though some observers hope Lourenco, a dos Santos loyalist who has pledged to fight widespread corruption, will work on transparency despite an entrenched elite that includes the dos Santos family.
The 74-year-old dos Santos is expected to remain head of the ruling party. Lourenco, 63, is a former governor who fought in the war against Portuguese colonial rule as well as the long civil war that ended in 2002.
The MPLA won the election with 61 percent of the vote, the country’s election commission said after 98 percent of votes from Wednesday’s election were counted. The MPLA had four million votes, while the leading opposition UNITA party had 1.8 million votes, or nearly 27 percent, election commission spokeswoman Julia Ferreira said. About 23 percent of eligible voters did not go to the polls.
While the ruling party defeated UNITA, its former foe during Angola’s devastating civil war, by a wide margin, it has lost popularity since beating its rival with 72 percent of the vote in the 2012 election.