Welcome to this week’s Angola Briefing, our regular review of the political and economic developments shaping Angola, combining the most important news of the week with analysis from our expert panel.

This week, host and journalist Fernando Lima was joined by Florindo Chivucute, founder and executive director of Friends of Angola, and Cláudio Silva, Angolan entrepreneur and political and economic commentator, to discuss the mounting economic pressures as Angola heads towards the 2027 elections, as well as the latest developments in the MPLA succession, political tensions in Uíge and the Lobito Corridor. Below, we bring together the key news and the main insights from their discussion.

Angola is now a year away from its next general election, and the economic choices that will shape the campaign are becoming harder to postpone. The government has powerful political reasons to protect consumers and accelerate visible public investment, but the state of the public finances is pulling hard in the oppposite direction.

The tension is evident in the latest fiscal figures. Angola recorded a deficit of Kz3.9 trillion ($4.3 billion) in the first half of 2026, according to calculations by Expansão based on Finance Ministry data, up 259% from the same period last year. Spending on goods and services rose 54.1%, while expenditure on fuel subsidies increased 55.6%.

Fuel illustrates the government’s predicament particularly well. The economic case for phasing out subsidies has long been clear: they are expensive, encourage cross-border smuggling and divert resources from other priorities. But previous increases in fuel prices have contributed to social unrest, making further reform considerably more politically difficult as the 2027 election approaches.

Cláudio Silva told this week’s Angola Briefing that he sees little prospect of another substantial fuel-price increase before the election. His expectation is instead that the government will once again turn towards infrastructure and other highly visible expenditure as voting approaches, following a pattern seen ahead of previous elections.

The inauguration this week of the new Luanda Convention Palace offers an awkward backdrop to that debate. The government presents the 80,000-square-metre complex, which includes a 3,000-seat theatre and facilities for major international meetings, as part of Angola’s attempt to attract conferences and other large events. There may be a legitimate economic argument for building such infrastructure, but at a time of intense pressure on household incomes it also invites questions about opportunity cost and the government’s spending priorities.

That matters because the political return from a traditional pre-election spending push is far from guaranteed. Silva argued during our discussion that inaugurating infrastructure shortly before an election has become a familiar MPLA strategy, yet the party’s electoral support has nevertheless declined substantially over successive elections. Florindo Chivucute made a related point: younger voters in particular are more likely to judge the government on jobs, education, services and their economic prospects than on the MPLA’s historical record.

Finding the money presents another problem. The government can borrow domestically or externally, postpone other expenditure or hope that oil revenues provide additional room, but none offers unlimited resources. And while the IMF has no programme in Angola and therefore limited direct leverage over government decisions, international lenders and investors ultimately make their own judgements about Angola’s fiscal trajectory and the price at which they are prepared to finance it.

This leaves the MPLA confronting a difficult electoral calculation. Fiscal restraint, further subsidy reform and tighter control of public investment could strengthen the economy but impose costs on voters before they go to the polls. Spending heavily might postpone some of that pain and create a sense of activity, but could also increase borrowing requirements and eventually add to inflationary and currency pressures.

More fundamentally, it is unclear whether another burst of state spending can substantially change political attitudes that have formed over years. As Silva put it during our discussion, dissatisfaction is rooted not simply in today’s prices but in employment, education, healthcare and perceptions of economic management.

The choice facing the government is therefore not simply whether to spend more before 2027. It is whether Angola still has the fiscal space to mount a conventional pre-election push — and whether doing so would deliver the political return the MPLA needs.

Also in the news:

Higino Carneiro keeps the MPLA succession question alive

The battle over who will lead the MPLA into 2027 remains unresolved, with Higino Carneiro continuing to challenge the rejection of his candidacy for the party presidency. The MPLA’s candidacy commission declared his application null in July, saying its verification found only 2,561 valid subscriptions among 14,493 examined and alleging false and irregular documentation. The Constitutional Court subsequently admitted Carneiro’s request for a precautionary suspension of that decision and ordered the MPLA to respond.

Carneiro’s challenge matters beyond the immediate question of whether he eventually appears on the ballot at the MPLA congress. The episode is testing whether a senior figure from within the party establishment can mount a genuine challenge for its leadership, at a moment when President João Lourenço has yet to settle publicly the question of succession.

Our panel was deeply sceptical about Carneiro’s prospects. Chivucute argued that the concentration of political and institutional power around the presidency leaves him fighting on an uneven playing field, while Silva placed the dispute in the longer history of an MPLA that has rarely tolerated genuine competition for its top job. Silva’s prediction was unequivocal: Lourenço will ultimately face no meaningful challenge for the leadership.

Whether that prediction proves correct remains to be seen. But the Carneiro affair has already turned what might otherwise have been a managed internal succession process into a public argument about how much competition the MPLA is prepared to accommodate within its own ranks.

Uíge raises an early warning over political space

Violence surrounding a planned UNITA event in Uíge has added another dimension to concerns about the political environment ahead of 2027. UNITA’s youth wing said 31 people were injured, ten seriously, during the police intervention on 8 August. Police said they had used “moderate force” after organisers failed to comply with instructions to move the event, and senior police officials have since rejected what they describe as attempts to turn the incident into a partisan controversy.

The disagreement over precisely what happened is itself significant. Silva noted during our discussion that images and video circulated rapidly on social media, making it harder for official accounts of confrontations to go unchallenged. More broadly, both panelists saw Uíge as part of a longer-running problem in which opposition mobilisation is treated differently from activity by the ruling party.

Chivucute expects pressure to fall particularly heavily on political organisations regarded as a genuine threat to the MPLA, rather than being applied uniformly to every opposition party. Silva offered a slightly different interpretation: the security forces, he argued, become especially uncomfortable when any organisation demonstrates an ability to mobilise substantial numbers on the streets.

Either way, Uíge is an early test of something that will become increasingly important over the next year: whether opposition parties can organise and campaign freely as the election approaches. With Angola’s young population increasingly distant from the experience of the civil war, attempts to deter political mobilisation may also have a different effect from those they produced in previous generations.

Lobito Corridor moves another step closer to reality

The Lobito Corridor received another significant financial commitment this month, with the African Development Bank approving a $255 million loan and $10 million grant to support Zambia’s participation. The financing is intended to help develop the Zambian leg of the corridor, including a new railway connection towards Angola, alongside roads, trade facilitation, energy and other investments. The AfDB says further resource mobilisation could eventually take its contribution to as much as $500 million.

For Silva, the accumulation of financing and infrastructure commitments is evidence that Lobito is moving beyond geopolitical rhetoric towards something tangible. Connecting the existing Angolan and Congolese rail systems effectively, and ultimately extending the corridor into Zambia, would turn the Port of Lobito into a much more important Atlantic outlet for the mineral-rich Copperbelt.

The larger question for Angola is what happens around the railway. Transit fees and port activity are obvious benefits, but the corridor’s economic significance will depend on whether it generates investment, industry and employment inside Angola rather than functioning principally as a route carrying Congolese and Zambian minerals to the coast.

Chivucute was optimistic that Western and multilateral involvement could bring greater scrutiny and local benefits, while stressing that these outcomes depend on how agreements are negotiated and implemented. That is increasingly the right benchmark for Lobito: not whether the corridor will happen, but who captures the value as it does.

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In this episode, we look at Angola’s fuel shortages, the new “fake news” law and worsening food insecurity in the south, before turning to the country’s evolving foreign policy and how Luanda is balancing closer ties with the US and Europe against its longstanding relationships with China and Russia.

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Angola’s Foreign Policy: Balancing Old Partners and New Opportunities

Luanda is drawing closer to the US and Europe while keeping China central and Russia at the table

Angola’s growing relationship with the United States has taken another step beyond trade and infrastructure. A new 2026–2031 defence cooperation roadmap, agreed during the second US–Angola Joint Defence Cooperation Committee in Luanda on 5–6 August, envisages closer ties in military training, maritime security, cyber-defence and other areas. (ANGOP; US Embassy in Angola).

The agreement also fits the Trump administration’s new approach to Africa. Washington says it is shifting its emphasis from aid towards trade and “commercial diplomacy”, using embassies, development finance and infrastructure policy to support US companies, secure supply chains and improve access to critical minerals. The State Department cites the Lobito Corridor as a leading example of that policy. (US State Department)

It is tempting to see these developments as an Angolan pivot to the West. The discussion in this week’s Angola Briefing suggested a broader strategy. João Lourenço is widening Angola’s room for manoeuvre, diversifying sources of finance and security cooperation while avoiding an exclusive alignment with any single bloc.

That approach is visible across Angola’s main relationships. Europe is putting increasingly large sums behind the Lobito Corridor and related projects, with Team Europe saying it is mobilising more than €2 billion for transport, energy, agriculture, skills and local value chains (European Commission). Washington also regards the route from the Congolese and Zambian copper belts to the Atlantic as commercially and strategically important. Defence cooperation suggests that the relationship is acquiring greater political depth, rather than remaining centred on one railway project.

While Angola’s relationship with Russia is historically rooted in Cold War support, its current relationship is far more limited and transactional. Russia’s economic footprint has shrunk significantly following Western sanctions and the exit of Russian diamond giant Alrosa from Angola’s Catoca mine, which removed one of its last major commercial positions in the country. Today, cooperation is largely concentrated on maintaining legacy Soviet-era military equipment and limited defence training links, alongside continued diplomatic engagement after Moscow appointed a new ambassador to Luanda in 2026. In return, Angola maintains a pragmatic diplomatic relationship with Russia in multilateral forums, but the partnership is no longer a major driver of trade, investment or security policy compared with China, the EU or the United States.

China places an even clearer limit on any simple realignment. Its ambassador says bilateral trade reached $10.8 billion in the first half of 2026, after totalling $20.8 billion in 2025. Angola’s own trade statistics give a clearer measure of the imbalance: China received 47% of Angolan goods exports in 2025 and supplied 20.4% of its imports. The United States accounted for only 1.3% of exports and 5.5% of imports. (Angola National Statistics Institute, 2025 trade yearbook)

The comparison with Angola’s Western partners is instructive. EU goods trade with Angola totalled €7.9 billion in 2025, down from about €9.5 billion in 2024 (European Commission trade factsheet). US goods trade was approximately $2 billion. American exports to Angola rose by 72.6% during the year, but US imports from Angola fell by 53.4%, largely reflecting the reduced weight of Angolan oil in the relationship (US Trade Representative). China remains by far Angola’s largest single-country commercial partner. Western strategic engagement is growing faster than its trade footprint.

The financial relationship with Beijing is also evolving rather than ending. Chinese lenders committed more than $49 billion to Angola between 2000 and 2024, although that figure represents loan commitments rather than the amount still outstanding (Chinese Loans to Angola report). Angola’s public-debt office says China’s share of the debt stock fell from 34% in 2020 to 19% in 2025, while oil-collateralised debt to Chinese creditors declined to about $7.3 billion. Luanda has reduced one form of dependence, but Chinese trade, finance and technology remain deeply embedded in the economy.

That history has brought roads, railways, housing and other infrastructure, while also exposing weaknesses in Angola’s development model. Florindo Chivucute described the result as “development without inclusion”: large capital flows and ambitious projects alongside persistent poverty and limited benefits for much of the population. Earlier Chinese lending and contracting often operated with little public scrutiny inside an already centralised political economy. Diversifying sources of finance will achieve little if weak oversight, privileged access and poor accountability survive under a different group of foreign partners.

Russia, meanwhile, has lost ground without disappearing. A Luanda court convicted two Russian nationals of offences including espionage and terrorism in July, sentencing them to 11 and eight years in prison; both men deny wrongdoing and have appealed. Russian state-controlled diamond producer Alrosa has also left its 41% holding in Catoca after Western sanctions complicated banking and diamond sales. Yet Moscow appointed a new ambassador to Angola on 28 July, signalling that it intends to preserve its diplomatic presence.

Angola now has more foreign-policy options than it did a decade ago. Competition over minerals, infrastructure, markets and security gives Luanda greater bargaining power, but leverage only has value if it produces better investment terms, stronger local supply chains and more transparent financing. Otherwise Angola may become more strategically important to its partners without becoming significantly more prosperous for its own population.

Also in the news:

Fuel shortage persists despite new refining capacity

Sources: Novo Jornal, Valor Económico, ANGOP, MIREMPET/IRDP, Sonangol

Petroleum minister Diamantino Azevedo has acknowledged a national fuel shortage, citing increased consumption, international prices, logistical constraints and financial difficulties at Sonangol. The problem remained acute this week in Benguela, Cabinda, Huíla and Cunene, although supply in Luanda was reported to be more stable. In Ondjiva, motorists have waited as long as three days to fill up, while petrol has sold on the informal market for Kz2,000 a litre and as much as Kz3,000 near the Santa Clara border, compared with an official pump price of Kz300.

The underlying dependence remains large. Official IRDP figures show that imports supplied 73% of Angola’s fuel consumption in 2025, at a cost of about USD2.6 billion; imports accounted for 84% of fuel acquired in the final quarter. The Luanda refinery’s newer petrol unit has capacity of 1.58 million litres a day, while the first phase of the Cabinda refinery can process 30,000 barrels a day. Sonangol announced a stabilisation plan involving road and maritime deliveries in May, and Azevedo says the present shortage is being addressed, but no timetable or new emergency measure has been announced and shortages were still being reported on 11 August.

The latest crisis is harder to dismiss as a temporary logistics problem because it comes after substantial investment intended to reduce Angola’s dependence on imported fuel. Inês Silva traced that dependence to decades in which Angola exported crude and used the proceeds to import refined products rather than building sufficient refining capacity. Florindo Chivucute focused on the payment chain between the state, Sonangol and suppliers. The IMF describes the same structural tension: Sonangol imports fuel in foreign currency, sells it domestically below market prices and is supposed to recover the subsidy from the state. New refineries should gradually reduce the import bill, but they do not solve that financing problem. Until Angola can reliably fund the gap between import costs and controlled pump prices — or reform subsidies without another severe cost-of-living shock — fuel shortages are likely to remain a recurring risk rather than an exceptional event.

New disinformation law raises stakes for online speech ahead of 2027

Sources: Novo Jornal, AngoLEX – Law 6/26, CPJ, Human Rights Watch

Angola’s Law Against False Information on the Internet entered into force on 4 August. It applies to content produced abroad when aimed at an Angolan audience and requires platforms to publish information on content removals and inauthentic accounts, submit monthly reports to the regulator and take action against material deemed false. The law also establishes administrative fines and allows criminal liability for intentionally producing or disseminating false information.

There is an important discrepancy in the reporting on penalties. Novo Jornal says the law establishes prison terms reaching ten years for cases involving elections or national security. The published text reproduced by AngoLEX does not contain those sentencing bands: Article 29 instead refers offences to the existing Penal Code and provides for applicable minimum and maximum sentences to be increased by up to half. That point should therefore be treated cautiously unless the official Diário da República text establishes otherwise.

The legislation had already prompted substantial international concern while it was being drafted. The Committee to Protect Journalists and 37 other press-freedom and human-rights organisations urged the government to amend the bill, warning that vague definitions, criminal sanctions and its extraterritorial scope could encourage censorship and affect journalists based outside Angola. Human Rights Watch subsequently cited the disinformation proposal as part of a broader expansion of state controls over civic and public life.

The practical significance will become clearer as Angola approaches the 2027 election. Florindo Chivucute sees the law as part of a wider body of legislation that civil-society groups fear can be used against dissent, while Inês Silva emphasised the importance of Facebook and other platforms as spaces where Angolans discuss unemployment, living costs and government policy outside the more constrained traditional media environment. The risk extends beyond prosecutions. Broad liability and removal requirements can encourage platforms, editors and individual users to err on the side of silence, particularly when the boundary between a false factual claim and legitimate criticism is uncertain. In an election year, that could narrow one of the few arenas in which political debate has remained relatively difficult for the authorities to control.

Food insecurity in southern Angola set to worsen during lean season

Source: ReliefWeb – Angola Key Message Update

Parts of southern Angola are expected to deteriorate from Stressed food-security conditions to Crisis during the October 2026–January 2027 lean season. The assessment identifies poor harvests, drought, water and pasture shortages, transport costs and falling livestock values among the pressures on households in Cunene, Namibe, Huíla and Cuando Cubango. Cattle prices were reported at around Kz150,000 in May, down from roughly Kz400,000 in 2023.

The latest warning describes a recurring structural problem rather than an isolated bad season. Chivucute argued that successive governments have relied on temporary interventions without reducing the vulnerability of communities repeatedly hit by drought and food shortages. Silva raised a related governance problem: the gap between official presentation of large water and anti-drought projects and the conditions reported by communities and religious organisations on the ground. Investment in dams and water infrastructure may improve resilience, but repeated food crises suggest that measuring success by projects completed is insufficient without evidence that household livelihoods are becoming more secure.

This new product is still in a pilot phase, and for the month of August will:

• Remain free to watch, listen to, and read

• Run once a week, except for the week of Thursday the 20th, when it will take a break to allow for staff holidays.

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The new model will feature editions focused on particular issues, featuring sector experts. Please get in touch if there are issues you would particularly like to see covered, or questions you would like answered. You can hit reply if you’re reading this as an email, leave a comment online, or get into the Angola Briefing chat on Substack.

Today’s edition is focused on the road to the 2027 elections, unquestionably the biggest issue overshadowing all others in Angola right now, and for the coming year.

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Angola’s 2027 election has already begun

The MPLA succession dispute, a legal challenge over vote-counting technology, and pressure on civil society are testing the institutions that will shape the vote’s credibility

Angola will not hold its next general election until 2027, but the conditions under which it will be fought are already being established. The dispute over the MPLA leadership, a court challenge to the choice of the company providing election technology, and growing concern over the treatment of government critics may appear unrelated. Together, however, they add up to significant doubts over whether Angola can enter the next election with broadly accepted rules, credible institutions and sufficient political space for a genuinely competitive contest.

The immediate focus is the MPLA. Higino Carneiro’s challenge to the rejection of his leadership candidacy has reached the Constitutional Court, while João Lourenço remains firmly in control of the party machinery ahead of the December congress. Carneiro may ultimately fail, but his persistence has exposed the difficulty the MPLA continues to have in accommodating internal competition. This matters beyond the governing party because Lourenço cannot constitutionally seek another term as President of the Republic in 2027. The MPLA must therefore decide not only who leads the party, but who will inherit its political project and contest an election in which its continued dominance can no longer be assumed.

Whoever emerges will face an electorate very different from the one over which the MPLA established its long supremacy. Much of Angola’s population is young, with little or no memory of the civil war. For these voters, the historical legitimacy of the liberation movements matters less than employment, incomes, education, healthcare and prospects for a better life. As Cláudio Silva argued on this week’s Angola Briefing, this generational shift helps explain the growing distance between the MPLA and younger urban voters and the appeal of UNITA leader Adalberto Costa Júnior. The 2022 election already demonstrated the scale of the governing party’s challenge in Luanda and other urban centres.

Yet the credibility of 2027 will depend on much more than the identities of the candidates. The Liberal Party’s challenge to the award of the election technology and logistics contract to INDRA highlights longstanding concerns about confidence in electoral administration. The central issue should not be reduced to the Spanish company itself. It is whether the National Electoral Commission can demonstrate that procurement, technology, transmission and aggregation of results are transparent and subject to meaningful scrutiny. Questions that can be answered before the election should not be allowed to become disputes about legitimacy after it.

The same principle applies to political space. Civil-society organisations are already protesting against what they describe as the use of the justice system against government critics. It would be wrong to assume that every arrest or prosecution is politically motivated, but an election cannot command broad confidence if opposition parties, activists, journalists and ordinary citizens believe that criticism or political organisation exposes them to intimidation. Nor is electoral competition equal if public media remain overwhelmingly associated with the government while opposition voices struggle for comparable access, particularly outside Luanda.

There is still time to address these weaknesses. The courts can demonstrate their independence by resolving political and electoral disputes promptly and transparently. The CNE can publish more information about its procedures and permit credible independent scrutiny of election technology. Public media can provide meaningful space for competing political voices, while the authorities can demonstrate that peaceful organisation and criticism will be protected rather than treated as threats to the state.

None of this favours the MPLA, UNITA or any other party. It favours an election whose result Angolans can trust. That distinction will become increasingly important as 2027 approaches, particularly if the contest is close. The election has not yet formally begun, but the contest over its credibility already has.

The news summaries regarding the developments discussed in the leader above, can be read below 👇

Also in today’s Angola Briefing:

• Unitel outage exposes Angola’s dependence on one network (Expansão, Angola24Horas, Angola24Horas)

• State companies absorb USD352 million but return only USD83 million (Expansão, Expansão)

• Carneiro takes rejected MPLA leadership bid to court (Angola24Horas, Novo Jornal, MPLA)

• INDRA contract dispute puts CNE procurement under scrutiny (O País, Angola24Horas, CNE)

• Vigil turns attention to pressure on government critics (Lusa/RTP, DW, Angola24Horas)

Unitel outage exposes Angola’s dependence on one network

Sources: Expansão, Novo Jornal, Angola24Horas, Angola24Horas, Angola24Horas, CIAM/Jornal de Angola

A cyberattack on Unitel disrupted communications and digital services across Angola as the country’s dominant mobile operator entered the stock market. Unitel serves about 20.8 million customers and controls roughly 76% of the market. UNITA has called for an independent audit, parliamentary hearings and a commission of inquiry, although no inquiry has been confirmed. Unitel has yet to publish a detailed account of the failure or its economic cost.

The outage exposed a weakness extending beyond Unitel’s systems. Customers who moved to Africell encountered an operator unable to absorb the sudden increase in demand, leaving Angola without effective redundancy in essential communications infrastructure. Partial privatisation has widened Unitel’s shareholder base without ending state control, making disclosure a test for regulators as well as the company. Parliament’s consideration of the Cybersecurity Law adds urgency, but stronger security powers should be accompanied by mandatory incident reporting, independent technical scrutiny and judicial oversight.

State companies absorb USD352 million but return USD83 million

Sources: Expansão, Expansão, Expansão, Expansão, Sonangol

Angola spent Kz320.9 billion, approximately USD352 million, recapitalising and subsidising state-owned companies in 2025, while receiving about USD83 million from the sector. The 78 companies that submitted accounts reported an aggregate profit of Kz949 billion. That result was heavily dependent on Sonangol and Unitel: without their combined profits, the sector would have recorded a loss of about Kz72 billion.

The headline profit obscures the financial weakness of much of the state-owned sector. It also leaves an important question unanswered: how much of the performance attributed to Sonangol and Unitel came from their principal operations rather than dividends, investments or asset holdings? Privatisation may be appropriate for some companies, but a sale alone will not correct weak governance or prevent a public monopoly from becoming a private one. The immediate priority is fuller disclosure of subsidies, returns and operating results, followed by company-specific decisions on restructuring, sale or closure.

Carneiro takes rejected MPLA leadership bid to court

Sources: Angola24Horas, Novo Jornal, Novo Jornal, Lusa, MPLA

Angola’s Constitutional Court has admitted Higino Carneiro’s challenge to the rejection of his candidacy for the MPLA leadership. The dispute concerns supporting forms that party officials allegedly found invalid or falsified, as well as Carneiro’s claim that the decision breached the MPLA’s electoral timetable. The party congress is scheduled for 9–10 December.

INDRA contract dispute puts CNE procurement under scrutiny

Sources: O País, Angola24Horas, CNE, Novo Jornal, Lusa/VerAngola
The Liberal Party has asked the Supreme Court to annul the award of the technological and logistics contract for the 2027 election to Spanish company INDRA. It alleges irregularities in the tender and a lack of transparency over the evaluation criteria. INDRA has meanwhile presented its implementation plan to the National Electoral Commission.

Vigil turns attention to pressure on government critics

Sources: Lusa/RTP, DW, Angola24Horas, Jornal Folha 8

Civil-society groups held a vigil in Luanda to demand the release of people they describe as political prisoners. Organisers accused the justice system of being used against government critics and called for an end to politically motivated detention. The authorities accuse detainees cited by activists of offences including rebellion, terrorism and public incitement to crime.

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Cyberattack overshadows Unitel’s successful stock-market debut

The state raised Kz300.3bn from the flotation, but the nationwide disruption revealed the economic risks created by Unitel’s dominant market position.

Unitel made a striking debut on Angola’s stock exchange this week. Its shares rose 24.88% on their first day of trading, even as the company worked to restore mobile services following a cyberattack that disrupted communications and electronic payments across the country.

The state raised Kz300.3bn from the sale of a 15% stake in Angola’s largest telecommunications operator. Demand exceeded the 7.5m shares available, generating 17,549 subscription orders and bringing more than 11,000 new shareholders into the company. Unitel’s share price climbed from the offer price of Kz40,040 to approximately Kz50,000.

Unitel said the attack was detected at 2.20 am on Tuesday and affected mobile voice, data and internet services nationwide. Payment terminals using Unitel SIM cards were disrupted, while some banking customers could not receive the verification messages needed to complete transfers. Services began returning after around 36 hours. By Thursday, Unitel said it had gradually restored them in 15 provinces, although recovery was not yet complete.

The scale of the disruption reflects Unitel’s position in the economy. The company has approximately 20.8m customers, controls around 76% of Angola’s telecommunications market and reported net profits of more than Kz158bn in 2025. Those figures help explain the demand for its shares. They also show how heavily households and businesses depend on its network.

“If Unitel goes down, the country pretty much comes to a standstill,” Cláudio Silva said during this week’s Angola Briefing.

For restaurants and retailers, the outage meant lost payments and interrupted trade. Other businesses struggled to communicate with staff and suppliers. The effects were more severe for customers without fixed internet access or a connection from another provider.

Angola does have competing mobile operators, including Africell and Movicel. Demand for Africell SIM cards reportedly increased during the outage. Their ability to provide an immediate substitute remains limited, however, particularly outside the areas where their networks are strongest. Unitel’s market position has therefore created a concentration risk extending well beyond the company and its shareholders.

The strong first-day share performance is understandable in that context. Investors were buying into a profitable operator with a dominant position in an essential market. The rally demonstrates confidence in Unitel’s capacity to generate returns, but provides little evidence about the resilience of its infrastructure.

Important questions about the incident remain unanswered. Unitel is working with the authorities and international partners to identify the attackers. It has said it is considering whether the timing was intended to disrupt its admission to the stock exchange, although it has presented this as one hypothesis and has not identified those responsible.

Cyberattacks can affect even well-funded telecommunications companies, and the outage does not by itself establish whether Unitel’s ownership structure or market dominance contributed to the breach. Its fixed telecommunications services were not affected, according to the company. A fuller assessment will require evidence about how the attackers gained access, which safeguards failed and whether adequate backup systems were available.

Unitel’s limited public communication during the outage nevertheless added to the uncertainty. Silva noted that long gaps between company statements created room for rumours and conspiracy theories. As a listed company, Unitel will face closer scrutiny over the speed and quality of its disclosures, as well as the investment it makes in network resilience.

The flotation gives the government some encouragement as it prepares further sales under ProPriv. Its wider significance should be treated cautiously. Unitel is unusually profitable and occupies a dominant market position; investor demand for its shares cannot be assumed for state assets with weaker finances, poorer governance or more difficult restructuring needs.

The more consequential test comes after the first-day rally. Unitel must explain the failure and show that its listing brings greater transparency and stronger operational discipline. Future ProPriv transactions will gain credibility only if they improve how strategic companies are governed. A change in minority ownership is too limited a reform on its own.

Also in today’s Angola Briefing:

• Unitel shares jump on stock-market debut despite cyberattack (Expansão, O País, Novo Jornal)

• Oil production falls short of budget target as offshore incentives advance (Expansão, Ponto de Situação)

• Businesses still await support a year after deadly Luanda unrest (Novo Jornal/Lusa, Novo Jornal)

Unitel shares jump on stock market debut despite cyberattack

Sources: Lusa, Lusa, O País, Economia & Mercado, Expansão, Novo Jornal

The state’s sale of a 15% stake in Unitel got off to a strong start, with the shares rising 24.88% on their debut on the Bolsa de Dívida e Valores de Angola (BODIVA). The flotation is the first major transaction under the government’s ProPriv programme and is intended to broaden participation in Angola’s capital markets.

Trading was overshadowed by a cyberattack that disrupted Unitel’s mobile and internet services, affecting electronic payments and banking services across the country. The company said it had informed the authorities and was working with international partners to investigate the incident and restore services. The government plans to privatise nine further assets before the end of the year, including stakes in Standard Bank Angola, Endiama, TAAG and Angola Telecom.

The flotation is an important milestone for ProPriv. Unitel is one of Angola’s most recognisable companies, but investors still needed convincing that a large public offering could succeed. This week’s sale suggests there is demand for well-prepared transactions.

The cyberattack should not detract from that achievement, but it does highlight how dependent Angola has become on a small number of critical digital systems. As further strategic assets come to market, investors are likely to pay as much attention to the resilience of the wider operating environment as to the companies themselves.

Oil production falls short of budget target as offshore incentives advance

Sources: Expansão, Ponto de Situação

Oil production remained below the level assumed in the 2026 State Budget during the first half of the year, reinforcing concerns over declining output from Angola’s mature oilfields. At the same time, the government has proposed a package of fiscal incentives for offshore Blocks 34 and 35, including lower taxes, improved production-sharing terms and accelerated depreciation, in an effort to attract fresh upstream investment.

The proposed measures are intended to improve project economics and encourage exploration and development as Angola seeks to stabilise medium-term oil production.

The government has little choice but to make Angola’s offshore sector more competitive. Production from mature fields continues to decline, while international oil companies have become increasingly selective about where they invest.

The awkward reality is that Angola’s plans to diversify the economy still depend on an oil industry capable of generating the revenues to finance that transition. Lower production therefore makes attracting new upstream investment more—not less—important.

Businesses still await support a year after deadly Luanda unrest

Sources: Novo Jornal/Lusa, Novo Jornal

One year after the July 2025 taxi strike and riots, business owners affected by the unrest say they are still waiting for the support promised by the government. Novo Jornal reports that one hotel owner has yet to rebuild after his property was destroyed, despite the announcement of a Kz50bn financing programme for affected businesses.

Taxi association leaders also say the grievances that triggered last year’s protests remain unresolved, insisting they will continue campaigning over fuel prices and working conditions despite the arrests that followed the unrest. Official figures put the death toll at 30, with 277 people injured and 1,515 arrests.

The anniversary is a reminder that the political consequences of last year’s unrest have not disappeared. Rising living costs, youth unemployment and frustration with public services continue to shape public opinion, even if the protests themselves have subsided.

Economic reforms are ultimately judged by whether they improve everyday life. That remains the government’s biggest political challenge as the 2027 elections draw closer.

Other Headlines

Public debt returns to pre-pandemic levels (Expansão)
Angola’s public debt rose 16% year on year to $72.1bn in the first half of 2026, driven by Eurobond issues and increased domestic borrowing.

Government strengthens ANIESA’s inspection powers (Economia & Mercado)
Proposed reforms would abolish INADEC, transfer its functions to ANIESA and remove the SIC’s economic-inspection responsibilities.

Kwanza joins SADC payments system (BNA)
The kwanza has become the second settlement currency in SADC-RTGS, allowing eligible regional payments to be settled directly in the Angolan currency.

Studies launched for West–East highway (Ministry of Public Works)
Angola will invest around $21m in studies for the proposed 1,300km highway connecting Benguela with Bié and the Moxico provinces.

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IN FOCUS

MPLA: Carneiro’s exclusion makes Angola’s succession more dangerous

The MPLA may be able to eliminate internal competition, but it cannot eliminate the public discontent that will shape the 2027 election

The rejection of Higino Carneiro’s candidacy for the MPLA presidency makes João Lourenço’s victory at the party congress in December appear almost certain. But it does not answer who will be president of Angola after 2027.

Carneiro’s submission may contain the irregularities alleged by the MPLA’s candidacy subcommittee. Of the 14,493 supporting forms it counted, the committee declared just 2,561 valid. Carneiro is entitled to ask why a final-looking decision was announced months before the candidacy deadline, however, and to demand an opportunity to inspect the thousands of forms declared invalid or false.

The dispute is more significant than Carneiro’s prospects. His candidacy offered the MPLA an opportunity to demonstrate that it could manage internal competition after half a century in power. Instead, the party appears to be reverting to its established practice of treating a challenge to its leader as an act of disloyalty.

Lourenço need not seek an unconstitutional third presidential mandate to preserve his influence. By remaining MPLA president, he could oversee the choice of the party’s national candidate and retain substantial authority if that candidate wins. Eliminating Carneiro therefore strengthens Lourenço’s grip on the succession while leaving Angolans uncertain about who is being prepared to lead them.

That approach carries growing risks. The MPLA’s machinery remains formidable, particularly outside the major cities, where opposition parties face persistent obstacles to organising. But its electoral base is ageing while Angola’s overwhelmingly young population becomes more urban, connected and impatient. UNITA’s strong performance in Luanda in 2022 demonstrated the scale of that shift.

The MPLA can control access to its congress more easily than it can control this wider political change. Social media is weakening its dominance over information, while stagnant living standards and scarce employment are giving younger Angolans little reason to defend the existing settlement.

A competitive leadership contest might have helped the MPLA adapt before 2027. By closing that route, the party is pushing political competition back outside its own structures — where it will be harder to manage and potentially much more disruptive.

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Also in today’s Angola Briefing:

• Carneiro challenges exclusion from MPLA leadership contest (Lusa, Novo Jornal, DW)

• Debt rises as World Bank warns of declining per capita incomes (Lusa, Novo Jornal, Ministry of Finance)

• Lobito financing advances as Barra do Dande seeks $900m (Africa Finance Corporation announcement reported by Africa.com, Expansão, Mercado)

• Government considers higher electricity tariffs for large consumers (Angola24Horas, VerAngola)

• Russian nationals jailed for terrorism and espionage (The Guardian, Lusa, RFI)

Carneiro challenges exclusion from MPLA leadership contest (Lusa, Novo Jornal, DW)

Sources: Lusa, Novo Jornal, DW

The MPLA’s candidacy subcommittee has annulled Higino Carneiro’s bid for the party presidency, citing serious irregularities in the documentation submitted by his campaign. Of the 14,493 supporting forms counted by the committee, 2,561 were declared valid, 9,659 invalid and 2,273 false. Carneiro has filed a complaint with the commission preparing the party’s 9–10 December congress, arguing that the decision was premature because candidacies can be submitted until 25 October. He has demanded access to the rejected forms and a document-by-document review in the presence of his representative. President João Lourenço is currently the only validated candidate for the MPLA leadership.

It is difficult to see Carneiro forcing his way back into the contest. The allegations over his supporting documents give the MPLA grounds to pursue disciplinary or even legal action against him, and the party leadership has shown little appetite for genuine competition. His carefully phrased challenge may now be about preserving his standing within the party and demonstrating that he has support, rather than any real expectation of defeating Lourenço.

Carneiro’s candidacy was still revealing. The enthusiasm it generated, including among some younger Angolans, reflected a desire for choice and change rather than excitement about Carneiro himself. For the first time, the MPLA faced the possibility of a real contest for its leadership and responded by closing it down before it could develop.

The more interesting question is what Lourenço plans to do with another term as MPLA president. He would not need to seek a third term as head of state to remain highly influential: he could choose the party’s 2027 candidate and retain considerable power after the election. That may settle the immediate contest inside the MPLA, but it does nothing to tackle the party’s waning appeal among young and urban Angolans.

Debt rises as World Bank warns of declining per capita incomes

Sources: Lusa, Novo Jornal, Angolan Ministry of Finance

Angola’s public debt rose 9.1% during the first half of 2026 to Kz65.8tn ($72bn), equivalent to 51.24% of GDP, according to the government’s review of its Annual Borrowing Plan. External debt accounted for Kz46.5tn and domestic debt Kz19.3tn. The increase followed approximately $4bn of Eurobond issuance, while the government also bought back $1.2bn of securities ahead of large maturities in 2028–29 and reduced oil-collateralised debt to $6.83bn. Separately, the World Bank forecast average economic growth of 2.7% in 2026–28, below annual population growth of around 3.1%, and projected that approximately 42% of Angolans will remain in poverty through 2027.

Lobito financing advances as Barra do Dande seeks $900m

Sources: Africa Finance Corporation in Africa.com, Expansão, Mercado

The Lobito Corridor has reached a $753m financial close for upgrading its Angolan railway infrastructure, with financing from Africa Finance Corporation, the US International Development Finance Corporation and the Development Bank of Southern Africa. The Democratic Republic of Congo has also approved a public-private partnership with Mota-Engil to rehabilitate the Dilolo–Kolwezi–Lubumbashi–Sakania railway. Separately, Huatong Angola Industry and Berkshire Waterhouse Infrastructure Development have announced a proposed $900m investment in a deep-water terminal and associated infrastructure in the Barra do Dande Free Zone. The renewable 25-year sub-concession is awaiting institutional approvals, with its first phase expected to take 24 months.

Government considers higher electricity tariffs for large consumers

Sources: Angola24Horas, VerAngola

The government’s Economic Commission has reviewed a proposal to increase electricity tariffs for large consumers while leaving household and social tariffs unchanged. The government says the partial adjustment is intended to improve the finances of public electricity companies and support investment in expanding and modernising the system. No proposed tariff level or implementation date has been announced.

Russian nationals jailed for terrorism and espionage

Sources: The Guardian, Lusa, RFI

A Luanda court has sentenced Russian nationals Igor Ratchin and Lev Lakshtanov to 11 and eight years in prison respectively for offences including criminal association, espionage, terrorism and illegally retaining foreign currency. TPA journalist Amor Carlos Tomé received a two-year suspended sentence, while former UNITA youth official Francisco Oliveira, known as Buka Tanda, was acquitted. Prosecutors alleged that the defendants participated in an international network seeking to destabilise Angola and influence the 2027 elections. The prosecution and defence have appealed, and the Russian defendants remain detained pending a ruling.

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Welcome to the last edition of Zitamar’s special series of the Angola Briefing, covering the 2022 general elections in the country.

This newsletter will go into hibernation again after this briefing; but Zitamar Consulting remains available to provide bespoke reports on the political and economic risk impacts of these contested elections. Write to consultancy@zitamar.com to find out more.

Please forward this email to friends and colleagues who will find it relevant — our election coverage is free for all to read.

On Tuesday, Unita submitted a formal challenge to the official results confirmed by election administration body CNE, that give the MPLA a slim overall majority, with 51% of the vote. Unita won just under 44%, according to the CNE’s “definitive” results (see below).

Unita, however, says it has other figures. A message circulating on WhatsApp, which the Angola Briefing has not yet been able to confirm, purports to show Unita claiming to have won 64.57% of the national vote, compared with just 24.4% for the MPLA.

By the end of Tuesday, however, the CNE had already rejected Unita’s complaints on technicalities, as well as another complaint lodged by the CASA-CE coalition. Unita could now appeal to the Constitutional Court, however, this court was quick to turn down similar appeals after the 2017 elections. Following the constitutional review in April 2021, Angolan legal experts have even less confidence in the independence of the judiciary today.

Meanwhile, the civil society parallel counting organisation ‘Mudei’, linked to activist and musician Luaty Beirão, has launched a petition calling on both the CNE and Unita to publicly release the result sheets on which they are basing their opposing claims. The petition has almost 29,000 signatures at the time of writing — and the organisation delivered a printed copy of all the names to the CNE yesterday.

Greater transparency now seems to be the best that voters, frustrated with yet another questionable win for the MPLA, can hope for. But the opposition can also reflect on its best result ever — and consider how it might go one better in 2027.

Below we publish a translation of our correspondent’s final dispatch from Angola — reflecting on Unita’s historic result, in particular in the Angolan capital of Luanda, and the party’s chances of building on this for the next elections in 2027.

From Quifangondo, to 24 August

In 1975, on the eve of independence, with the help of a small Cuban expeditionary corps, the MPLA repelled a powerful FNLA military column at the gates of Luanda, supported by Portuguese mercenaries, regular troops from what was then Zaire, and artillerymen of the South African army.

With the famous battle of Quifangondo, fought 26 kilometres from the capital city, the MPLA expelled the FNLA and Unita from Luanda, then a movement with very little presence in the region. Agostinho Neto, with the sound of artillery in the background, the famous B-10 and BM-21 also known as “Stalin's organs”, proclaimed Angola's independence on the night of 11 November.

Luanda consolidated its position as a stronghold of the MPLA, which it continued to be in all multiparty elections held since 1992.

Until August 24, 2022.

Under the leadership of Adalberto da Costa Júnior (ACJ), Unita won 62.25% of the votes in the capital, against 33.62% for the MPLA. Of a total of 2 million votes, Unita won 1.2 million versus 672,000 votes for the party led by João Lourenço. Luanda officially has nine million inhabitants, and more than a third of the national electorate. 

What explains the MPLA's hecatomb? A young population — 64% under the age of 25 — that has never heard of the battle of Quifangondo, a formal unemployment rate of 40%, social networks that are the alternative to the unnatural intoxication of the public media, the economic crisis and covid-19, a campaign against corruption that was perceived as an inter-factional struggle within the MPLA itself. That's why the Unita vote in neighbourhoods like Alvalade, Maianga, Talatona, where the elite live, but who are revolted by the designation of “marimbondos” given by JLo, as the president is known. A new Unita of catchy speeches digging into the opponent's weaknesses.

With the evolving situation, in which Unita has not yet accepted the results, it is difficult to predict the political future of Angola and the MPLA. The hegemonic party has lost its two-thirds majority and 26 deputies, it has lost Luanda and its top activists are well aware of the extent of the damage to the country. The numbers of the population and of the electoral roll have been greatly inflated, meaning in reality turnout was much higher, so the losses are more concrete.

Depending on the MPLA's ability or inability to reinvent itself, all Unita may need to do is wait five years to consolidate the 2022 results, because oil does not solve everything and the tide of high prices is not going to last.

It remains to be seen whether the formidable coalition behind Adalberto da Costa Júnior, an engineer by training but clearly the architect of the new, modern, urban and future-oriented Unita, can last that long. Abel Chivukuvuku, Filomeno Vieira Lopes, Nelson Pestana and Justino Pinto de Andrade are heavyweights of what they proclaim as the “national team”. But often, egos end up speaking louder than the strategies of the long-distance runners.

As one Angolan commentator said, quoting Roman Emperor Julius Caesar: Alea jacta est — the die is cast.

Fernando Lima (Zitamar News / Canal de Moçambique / @Verdade consortium)

Welcome back to Zitamar’s Angola Elects newsletter. With almost all the votes now counted, the MPLA have been returned to power — albeit with a much reduced majority. For a brief summary of the state of play, see AP’s article this morning, by our correspondent Fernando Lima:

This one-off series of newsletters is brought to you free by Zitamar Consulting, providing blue-chip clients with bespoke reports on Lusophone Africa. Email consultancy@zitamar.com to find out more.

In this issue:

💵 Electoral violence, but not the usual type

🗳 Unita supporters protest results

🥱 High abstention

💵 Electoral violence, but not the usual type

One of the impressive features on election day was the presence of delegates for all the parties, seated at a bench, usually in front of the voting table officers and the ballot box. Were they party activists, or just another “small job”? With protests erupting on Thursday in the city of Luanda it is now clear that those youngsters, mainly women, were promised pay and a food subsidy for their time, which in many cases was not delivered. Police were called to APN, FNLA and CASA-CE offices to disperse protesters. They were refusing to turn in their copies of the results sheets before being paid. They claim they were promised KZ30,000 (equivalent to $60). The counting process revealed that at many polling stations, the small parties did not get any votes, suggesting even the party delegates did not vote for the political group they signed for.

Angolan social media quickly filled with videos of police on the streets of Luanda opening fire on APN protestors (although it remains unclear whether they were using live rounds). Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the former president and vocal critic of President Lourenço, was quick to share the scenes, claiming they showed “protests about ‘controversial’ election results and the ‘early’ announcement of a win for MPLA”, before she was corrected by Angolan BBC and VOA journalist Israel Campos.

🗳 Unita supporters protest results

Along with the protests around payments, in some neighborhoods in Luanda, there were also protests disputing the election results. Since Unita achieved an overwhelming victory in Luanda, young voters in particular claiming the CNE’s results, giving overall victory to the MPLA, were false. These spontaneous protests will likely continue on a small scale in Luanda and other Unita strongholds like Benguela and Huambo, for the coming days. MPLA spokesperson Rui Falcão suggested last night Unita leadership should confront their supporters and tell them the outcome of this week's election.

Unita is treading carefully with regards to the election results being presented by CNE. In a press conference they admitted that, according to the 40% of results that they had analysed so far, the MPLA had a small lead over Unita, of 47.99% to 46.89%. But, the party said, as more data was still to come from Luanda, that result could still be reversed. Spokesperson Ruben Sicalo said they would base any claim on seeing results sheets, “since this is the attitude of a responsible party,” adding that “there is no room to create an environment of social convulsion, an agitated environment, something our adversaries have done all the time”.

In past electoral campaigns, the MPLA has been quick to associate Unita with the chaos of the civil war days, and imply that a vote for Unita was a vote to return to violence. Adalberto Costa Júnior has been very wary of this throughout his campaign, avoiding any indications of alignment with Angola’s growing youth protest movement. The Unita leadership has historically (and often unfairly) been blamed for any violence that occurs at their supporters’ street protests, hence the calls for calm from Ruben Sicalo. It is likely that Costa Júnior will opt to take the legal route to challenge these results, if that is something his party wishes to do, as opposed to calling for mass protests from their supporters. However, at the grassroots level, it is unclear how much influence Costa Júnior will have over Unita supporters who feel disenfranchised and wish to organise spontaneous street protests.

🥱 High abstention

One of the surprising features in the elections is the high abstention rate, of 54.34%. Anecdotally, polling stations looked very well attended, with turnout of around 50% of the 650-700 registered voters in each logbook, so it seems CNE should correct and update its electoral roll to remove duplicates and deceased voters. Of the 14,399,391 registered voters, only 6,574,762 actually cast a vote.

MPLA spokesperson Rui Falcão blamed the high abstention rate for the MPLA’s poor showing in Luanda. This is quite a characteristic lack of self-reflection for a senior MPLA politician, and is likely to further raise tensions as Unita and civil society groups continue to (slowly) carry out their parallel vote counts. At the time of writing, Movimento Cívico Mudei has Unita ahead of the MPLA by 52% to 43% nationwide, though they have only counted 184,735 votes so far.

Latest results:

Amid multiple reports of vote-counting irregularities, election administration body the CNE presented results showing an almost unassailable lead for the ruling MPLA party this morning — and refused to take questions from journalists.

Official results released at 10:45am local time give the MPLA a nine point lead over Unita, with the incumbent winning 52% of the vote versus 43% for the opposition, with 86.41% of the vote counted.

The remaining 5% is divided between other parties, none of which seems likely to get enough votes to win a seat in parliament.

Unita has a strong lead in the capital, Luanda, where 77% of the votes have been counted. Unita has 63% there, to the MPLA’s 33%. Unita is also in the lead in Zaire province, with 52.25% to the MPLA’s 36.14%.

The ruling MPLA is leading in all the other 16 provinces, however — and with only 13% of the total vote yet to be counted, it is a very tall order for Unita to overcome its 52:43 deficit.

The results confound voter intention surveys taken before the poll, which consistently showed Unita with a strong lead. A parallel count being conducted by civil society group Movimento Civico Mudei is currently showing a strong lead for Unita, but that is based on less than 2% of results so far, likely heavily skewed towards Luanda where the CNE agrees that Unita has won.

But the results are likely to be contested by the opposition and their supporters. Multiple reports have emerged of polling stations not posting their results on their doors, as required by law. Those results are what can be fed into the parallel count — but they are few and far between. Instead, results are being sent by polling staff to municipal authorities, who then forward them to CNE — with little or no transparency over what result is being sent.

There may be trouble ahead.

Battle over vote counts

The first salvo in the battle for the count came from the CNE (National Electoral Commission), at 1:00am last night. A CNE spokesperson announced that after 33.16% of the votes had been counted, the MPLA was leading with 60.65% and Unita was behind with 33.85%. Immediately after the CNE announcement, a set of commentators was brought onto TPA, the public TV channel which the opposition says is a government propaganda tool, saying that this was a clear victory for the ruling party, despite it being “too early to start festivities”. CNE did not provide any further details or context about the vote count.

Unita contested the results released and Abel Chivukuvuku, number two on the party's national list and candidate for vice president, told journalists and observers that the party has “clear provisional indicators of a victory all over the country”. Speaking at the same press conference in the early hours of Thursday morning, Filomeno Viera Lopes, from the Democratic Bloc within the Unita coalition, said that the party had won 65% of the vote in Luanda, the main electoral constituency in the country. He did however concede that the MPLA won the Quissama municipality, in the far south of the province.

Angolan social media is awash with highly divergent sets of numbers being circulated from voting intention polls, exit polls and parallel counts. Yesterday TPA broadcast results of a voting intention poll by Spanish public opinion firm Sigma Dos, which indicated that the MPLA would receive 53.6% of the vote, versus 42.4% for Unita. However, an exit poll from Movimento Civico Mudei indicated a strong lead for Unita, albeit using a very small sample size. The same organisation’s parallel count so far also indicates a strong lead for Unita, though counting is very slow — and the website with the live results is frequently unavailable. This could be due to excessive traffic on their server due to public interest, or the result of a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack, a tactic often used against websites not in line with the government’s official position.

View from the ground

Our reporters followed the vote count in three different neighbourhoods in Luanda (Kilamba Kiaxi, Golfe and Talatona) and there were clear indications of Unita´s lead in all three.

Our reporters witnessed the results sheets being filled by electoral officials and signed by all party list delegates. However, it is difficult to confirm the allegations from opposition parties that the sheets were not posted outside the voting assemblies. We were told list delegates get copies of the report or take a picture of it and then send it to the party's headquarters for parallel verification of the election results.

The movement suggested by Unita, “vote and sit”, encouraging voters to stay around the electoral voting assemblies did not have a major impact, despite groups of people seen close to the assemblies trying to find out the outcome of the election results. The orderly manner in which the voting exercise took place probably explains this non-confrontational stance from voters. Police standing outside the polls seemed to have instructions to not act in a violent fashion. This was even the case when angry would-be voters tried to force their way into polling sites after 4:00pm, the time set from ballot boxes closure.

Despite early indications of a good showing by Unita in these elections, it is too early for the opposition party to claim it has won. To be able to do so, it will need to be able to present its count of the result sheets that should have been sent to head office by the party’s delegates at polling stations around the country.

There are multiple reports from across the country of voting station presidents refusing to affix their actas to the outside of the station, as mandated by law, with one source noting that these orders came directly from CNE, as reported by VOA.

Concerns were raised back in February at the appointment of Spanish information technology and defence systems company INDRA to handle the provisional count and the final tally of Angola’s general election. This company also handled the vote counts in the 2008, 2012 and 2017 general elections in Angola, all of which were marred by irregularities, according to opposition political parties. There is also controversy surrounding INDRA’s work in Venezuela up until 2015, with investigative journalists accusing them of manipulating the vote collection systems in favour of Hugo Chávez. They have also faced criticism following their refusal to divulge the source code of their vote-counting algorithms, with Transparency International giving them a C grade in their anti-corruption assessment back in 2020.

Expired IDs leave some disenfranchised

Zitamar saw voters turned away from polling stations after they presented expired ID cards, even with the receipt saying they are waiting for their replacement to be issued. Election administration body CNE left it until almost 2pm on Wednesday — with little more than two hours left to vote — to formally clarify that voters in that situation should be allowed to vote; too late for the message to make it through to all polling stations.

Welcome back to Zitamar’s Angola Elects newsletter on election day, where our special correspondent Fernando Lima is on the ground in Luanda.

For a good backgrounder on today’s poll, see Fernando’s report for the Associated Press yesterday:

This one-off series of newsletters is brought to you free by Zitamar Consulting, providing blue-chip clients with bespoke reports on Lusophone Africa. Email consultancy@zitamar.com to find out more.

In this issue:

🚶🏿 Angolans off to the polls! Or are they?

🗳 MPLA mobilises for mass election monitoring

📱 No time for reflection in the age of social media

😷 No covid-19 regulations at polling stations

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🚶🏿 Angolans off to the polls! Or are they?

Up to 14 million Angolan voters will head to the polls today across the country (and in various locations overseas). In the populous neighbourhoods in Angola’s urban centres, all informal shops, street vendors and roadside alcohol purveyors have been told to close. Today is not a public holiday, but many people — including civil servants — have been given the day off, and the government doesn’t want them using their day off to frequent these establishments rather than actually voting. Formal commerce, in particular the country’s numerous shopping malls, will not be forced to close but the government did instruct their managers to ensure all workers have time to go and vote. In 2017, abstention hit an all-time high of 43%, and this year a high number of voters is again expected to stay away from the polls, despite a serious push to get voters registered.

Abstention rates will be key in this close-run election. Low voter turnout would favour the incumbent MPLA in provinces with strong Unita support (such as Huambo, Bié and Lunda Sul) or strong CASA-CE support (such as Cabinda, Zaire and Namibe). But the ruling party will want civil servants to cast their vote, knowing that in many cases they will be scared that voting for the opposition could somehow cost them their job.

🗳 MPLA mobilises for mass election monitoring

Ruling party the MPLA has announced it will be monitoring the elections in real time via its 53,000-strong list of trained delegates assigned to the 26,443 polling booths across the country and abroad. According to a party apparatchik, as soon as a polling station has filed its final results tally, the delegates will be sent to a special monitoring room in the party headquarters, to follow the results in real time and “fight all sorts of disinformation on results.” Unita has not publicised the exact system that it will use to follow the elections, but the party also has a special team to follow the election results. It is not yet known when official results will be available, but in the past, despite the sophistication of the equipment acquired by election administration body CNE, there have always been inexplicable delays on the publication of results. Several organisations are trying to organise parallel vote counting, as a way of fighting the manipulation of results.

The lack of a coordinated or formalised system for election monitoring by opposition parties will make it much more difficult for them to prove any claims of fraud made against the MPLA following the election. This is of particular concern since multiple recent polls, from organisations such as Movimento Cívico Mudei and AngoBarometro, have indicated that Unita has a strong lead, while the MPLA claims that its own polls indicate it is leading by over 20 percentage points. The highly partisan head of CNE is also unlikely to be keen on hearing complaints from the opposition about election irregularities (see Angola Elects 2022 — Issue 1).

After the elections in 2017, Unita went to Angola’s constitutional court to try and have the election annulled, but was unsuccessful. It claimed that in a number of provinces, the results published had been sent to the provinces from CNE’s headquarters in Luanda, rather than the other way round. Despite widespread concerns of irregularities by opposition parties and civil society organisations, the African Union Election Observation Mission (AUEOM) concluded that it could not find proof of the claimed fraud. There were no EU election observers in 2017, though they are present this time around.

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📱 No time for reflection in the age of social media

Traditionally, the day prior to election day is considered “the reflection day” where no political propaganda is broadcast or published in official print media. However, the concept is clearly outdated, given the importance and influence of social networks and cable TV, which makes it almost impossible to control the flow of information entering the houses of Angolan citizens. So, this year, the election campaigners simply halted their mass rallies. The coverage and political messaging has continued across media outlets, showing that times really are changing. 

😷 No covid-19 regulations at polling stations

People can vote without a face mask today — a boon for turnout, but a cause for some concern since Angola has only managed to double-vaccinate 20% of its population against covid-19. The health authorities have acknowledged this failure, given the high level of investment made in the vaccination campaign. But Angola is also one of the few remaining African countries that does not allow untested entry for vaccinated visitors, instead forcing all entrants to the country to take a rapid test at the borders, provided free of charge.

The rolling seven day average for new covid-19 cases in Angola is currently very low, according to the covid-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. As such, it seems unlikely that these elections will constitute a “super spreader event”, although testing capacity in Angola is very low, so there are questions around the validity of the data.

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Welcome back to the Angola Economic and Political Risk Briefing — and to the second edition of our special coverage of this year’s general elections in Angola (you can read yesterday’s first edition, free of charge, here).

In this issue:

• 🗳 Some voter fraud fears allayed……but others remain

• 🕵️‍♂️ CPLP observers express concerns

• 📺📻 Costa Junior praises state broadcasters’ campaign coverage

• 🛂 The painless Angolan entry process

Angolans head to the polls tomorrow to elect their president and National Assembly. The incumbent, President João Lourenço, was elected at the head of the MPLA ticket in September 2017. His predecessor, President José Eduardo dos Santos, had ruled Angola since 1979, making him one of Africa’s longest serving heads of state. 

All eyes are on this election, as Lourenço’s popularity ratings have declined significantly since he first took charge, due to economic difficulties compounded by the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic. Recent surveys suggest that the ruling MPLA will be fighting for political survival, up against the threat of the increasingly popular Unita opposition party.

Zitamar News has a special correspondent on the ground in Angola to cover the crucial elections in August 2022 — allowing us to send daily updates to subscribers to this newsletter.

Fernando Lima, a senior editor at Zitamar News, has covered all of Angola’s and Mozambique’s multiparty elections since the start of the democratic era in the 1990s, as well as the New York and Bicesse Accords. He is in Angola to cover these elections for Zitamar as well as Mozambican and Portuguese media and the Associated Press.

SEE: Angolans prepare for elections amid calls for a poll sit-in

This newsletter will go on ice again after the election fortnight is over; but Zitamar Consulting remains available to provide bespoke reports on political and economic risk as the full implications of what could be a turbulent period become clear.

Please forward this email to friends and colleagues who will find it relevant — our election coverage is free for all to read.

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🗳 Some voter fraud fears allayed……but others remain

24 hours before the elections, the Angolan CNE (National Commission for Elections) has started to publish the names of “list delegates” in the Jornal de Angola newspaper. These are lists of the parties’ representatives that should be present at all polling stations. The fact of these lists not being released was one of the complaints by opposition groups in the run-up to the election. But another concern is the lack so far of the “voters list” with the relevant location where every citizen is entitled to vote. The opposition parties fear that without these lists being published, people could end up voting in indiscriminate locations, making it harder to track vote manipulation and fraud.

The CNE has certainly left it to the last minute to publish these lists, however, they will go some way towards allaying fears of electoral malpractice amongst opposition groups. Unfortunately, there remain worrying indications that this will likely not be a free and fair vote. This week there were accusations from one civil society group that around 2 million dead Angolans remained on the electoral roll.

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🕵️‍♂️ CPLP observers express concerns

Jorge Carlos Fonseca, former president of Cape Verde and the head of CPLP (Community of the Portuguese Speaking Countries) observer mission in Angola, made headlines by saying he is listening to different perceptions on the role of electoral institutions in Angola — citing Unita’s complaints contesting the independence of CNE. Yesterday he led a strong contingent of CPLP observers to Cazenga, where Unita candidate Adalberto da Costa Junior was making his last appearance. It was noted that he was not present at Camama on Saturday, where the MPLA candidate João Lourenço delivered his final speech.

It is both encouraging and surprising to hear Fonseca making such statements in his official capacity, given the CPLP’s long track record of rubber-stamping flawed electoral processes within their member states. His absence at the MPLA rally, while attending that of Unita, is perhaps a diplomatic gaffe, but will provide further assurance that he is not in Angola to rubber-stamp a fraudulent MPLA win. The Angolan government is generally happy to allow CPLP, African Union and SADC monitors to observe their elections, given the low risk of negative feedback. By contrast, the MPLA would not admit EU monitors to the last legislative elections in 2017, and caused tensions with EU representatives this time round with the timing of observer invitations. One of the sticking points in 2017 was the EU’s demand for their observers to have unfettered access to all polling stations nationwide during the vote. 

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📺📻 Costa Junior praises state broadcasters’ campaign coverage

Unita candidate Adalberto da Costa Junior has praised the state television and radio broadcasters TPA and RNA for covering his campaign events, not only those of the MPLA.

Public media in Africa is notorious for its alignment with the governments of the day, particularly during electoral periods. Angola is no exception, and the Reporters Without Borders index for 2022 noted that “State-owned media dominate the Angolan media landscape. Only 20 or so of the 120 radio stations are privately owned and only two of them – Rádio Ecclesia, which is linked to the Catholic Church, and Rádio MFM – are regarded as independent.” It was therefore surprising to see Costa Junior praising the work of public media, noting that Unita’s political events are finally being covered live by TPA and RNA. However, his olive branch to the state broadcasters was met with silence from the crowd at the rally, who had cheered the other actors that Costa Junior had made a point of thanking.

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🛂 The painless Angolan entry process

International media and observers have been pleasantly surprised by the attitude of Angolan immigration authorities handling visitors at Luanda’s Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport. Covid-19 tests are mandatory upon arrival, but the process has been expedited, now being fast and free of charge (throughout covid-19 payment used to be taken with card terminals that would often reject international cards, causing stress and delays for visitors). The same can be said of the positive attitude of the SME (Serviço de Migração e Estrangeiros) immigration officers, usually part of the security apparatus. Only minimal questions are asked at passport control. Stress is further reduced with free wi-fi made available at the “covid hangar” and the SME premises, so that visitors can have instant communications with their institutions or families upon arrival.

Under former President dos Santos, Angola used to be a bureaucratic nightmare for visitors, with tourism and work visas both extremely difficult to obtain, and many immigrants working illegally on Ordinary visas. Tourist visas were only introduced in November 2007, and it quickly gained a reputation as being one of the hardest tourist visas in Africa to get hold of. On 1 December 2017, less than three months after coming to power, President Lourenço signed a reciprocal visa-waiver programme with South Africa. The following March, President Lourenço introduced a tourist e-visa on arrival for citizens of 35 countries, later expanding it to 59 countries (including all EU nations). It is likely that many foreigners are visiting Angola for the first time during this election, and are being pleasantly surprised by the relatively new simple entry procedures.

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More coverage from Fernando Lima:

Welcome back to the Angola Economic and Political Risk Briefing — and to the first edition of our special coverage of this year’s general elections in Angola.

On Thursday, 24 August, Angolans will head to the polls to elect their president and National Assembly. The incumbent, President João Lourenço, was elected at the head of the MPLA ticket in September 2017. His predecessor, President José Eduardo dos Santos, had ruled Angola since 1979, making him one of Africa’s longest serving heads of state. 

All eyes are on this election, as Lourenço’s popularity ratings have declined significantly since he first took charge, due to economic difficulties compounded by the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic. Recent surveys suggest that the ruling MPLA will be fighting for political survival, up against the threat of the increasingly popular UNITA opposition party.

Zitamar News has a special correspondent on the ground in Angola to cover the crucial elections in August 2022 — allowing us to send regular updates to all subscribers of this newsletter.

Subscribe now

Fernando Lima, a senior editor at Zitamar News, has covered all of Angola’s and Mozambique’s multiparty elections since the start of the democratic era in the 1990s, as well as the New York and Bicesse Accords. He is in Angola to cover these elections for Zitamar as well as Mozambican and Portuguese media and the Associated Press.

This newsletter will go on ice again after the election fortnight is over; but Zitamar Consulting remains available to provide bespoke reports on political and economic risk as the full implications of what could be a turbulent period become clear.

Please forward this email to friends and colleagues who will find it relevant — our election coverage is free for all to read.

🔢 The Angolan Election: By The Numbers

Seven parties and one coalition are running in the Angolan general elections scheduled for next Wednesday, 24 August. MPLA, UNITA, PRS, CASA-CE (coalition), FNLA, APN, PHA, P-Njango are the acronyms for the parties. 

14,399,391: Number of registered voters for these elections. 

43%: Abstention level in the last general elections in September 2017.

22,560: Angolan voters registered in the diaspora, enfranchised for the first time 

105,952: Number of CNE (National Commission for Elections) officials operating the 26,443 voting booths across the country and abroad. 

220: Number of deputies for Parliament that voters will be electing – 130 as a national constituency and 90 at the provincial level, five for each province, all elected through proportional representation under the d’Hondt method. 

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🗳 Vote and sit vs Vote and go

One of the main controversies in Angolan Elections. Unita, the main opposition party, has been expressing doubts as to the independence of election administration body CNE for years (for example, see Angola Briefing, 9 October 2020). As a result, Unita is arguing that voters, after casting their votes, should stay around the polling stations in order to monitor the count and the filling in of the results sheets, two crucial moments in southern African elections where the results are often stolen. All other parties, including the coalition CASA-CE, say voters should return to their homes and wait for the results there.
Unita certainly has grounds for concern. Manuel Silva Pereira "Manico" was a highly controversial choice to head up Angola’s CNE, with his inauguration two years ago drawing criticism from opposition parties and prompting street protests outside the National Assembly building in Luanda. Unita leader Adalberto Costa Júnior noted at the time that Manico’s appointment was intended to “keep the regime in power for eternity”. Manico is accused of being highly partisan in favour of the MPLA, having allegedly sent death threats to a Unita politician in June 2017 while president of the Provincial Electoral Commission of Luanda. He has also been accused of corruption relating to his previous role in Luanda.

✈️ Dos Santos finally home

Former President José Eduardo dos Santos is finally at home after a judicial dispute in Spain where he died on 8 July. A court in Barcelona decided the former president died of natural causes and his body should be returned to his widow, Ana Paula dos Santos. The body arrived in Luanda last Saturday aboard a TAAG aircraft, the Angolan national carrier, while the family came on another plane organised by the Angolan government. As part of an agreement reached with dos Santos’s family, the state funeral will only take place after the general election, to avoid it being exploited for political purposes in the run-up to the elections. The transport of the coffin in the luggage compartment of the plane, and the lack of military escort on removing the body from the aircraft, have caused controversy. In 1979, when the first president Agostinho Neto died in Moscow, his coffin was transported in the passenger compartment of a plane,  flanked by top-ranking officers of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).
The saga of Dos Santos’s death while in self-imposed exile in Spain has gripped the nation. It has negatively impacted President Lourenço’s public image, with many Angolans feeling that the whole affair highlighted Lourenço’s lack of respect for the former president. 

⚽️ Corruption scandal threatens Girabola kick-off

The Lussaty corruption case, which first made headlines in May 2021, has become a scandal which has engulfed the Angolan soccer premier league (known as “Girabola”), ahead of the new season due to start in September. Lussaty was the army officer in the Presidency´s military headquarters (Casa de Segurança) who made international headlines after dozens of bags containing foreign currency were found in his house (see Angola Briefing 28 May 2021). During the trial, the Attorney General’s office (Ministério Público) revealed that 39 soccer players from Kuando Kubango Futebol Clube (KK FC) were paid using funds from the provincial delegation of the Presidency´s military headquarters,  despite not being members of the military or Casa de Segurança staff. These salaries were paid until October 2021 and the calculated amount is 410 million kwanzas — almost a million US dollars. As a result of the scandal the KK FC have declared that they won’t be able to participate in the Girabola and the authorities are considering postponing the 2022-2023 season.

Under former president dos Santos the Casa de Segurança, headed by General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias “Kopelipa”, was seen as one of the epicenters of grand corruption in Angola. President Lourenço has engaged in a sweeping (and some claim politically-targeted) anti-corruption drive since coming to power, including trying to clean up the Casa de Segurança. Football, along with basketball, is a massive spectator sport in Angola. Any delay to the start of the season will be very unpopular nationwide. A delay potentially caused by corruption within the Casa de Segurança is deeply embarrassing for President Lourenço, at a time when he is seeking reelection.

If you found this newsletter useful, please forward to others who may do too! Our coverage of the Angola election in 2022 is free for all to subscribe and read.

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Welcome to the Angola Economic and Political Risk Briefing, Issue 113

brought to you by Zitamar News and Moxico Risk Consulting LLP, with Carlos Rosado de Carvalho and Nick Branson

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brought to you by Zitamar News and Moxico Risk Consulting LLP, with Carlos Rosado de Carvalho and Nick Branson

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brought to you by Zitamar News and Moxico Risk Consulting LLP, with Carlos Rosado de Carvalho and Nick Branson

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