Questions over ruling party in Angola vote

Angolans voted yesterday in an election in which the defence minister is the front-runner to succeed president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who will step down after 38 years in power in an oil-rich country beset by widespread poverty and corruption.

About 9.3 million Angolans are registered to vote for the 220-member National Assembly; the winning party will then select the president.

Dos Santos’ chosen successor is Joao Lourenco, the defence minister and a former governor who fought in the war against Portuguese colonial rule as well as the long civil war that ended in 2002.

Dos Santos and Lourenco voted separately in Luanda, the capital, reported the state-run Agencia Angola Press.

The main opposition leader, Isaias Samakuva of the Unita party, cast his vote at a university in a Luanda suburb.

Angolan rights activists have alleged that the ruling party unfairly used state machinery ahead of the election