Angola lives tomorrow its most uncertain elections of the last 30 years. The milestone is not difficult to achieve in a corrupt and dictatorial regime disguised as democratic. However, the nervousness shown by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in power since independence in 1975, indicates that there is some uncertainty. For now, the most striking thing is where the campaign has figuratively ended, in a wake, that of former president José Eduardo dos Santos. His body, repatriated from Barcelona on Saturday, more than a month after his death, was the government's last-minute triumph.
Is José Eduardo dos Santos good again, never stopped being good, or is he still bad? This question is asked by followers of the MPLA. They saw how, starting in 2017, the popularity of his successor and current candidate for re-election, João Lourenço, skyrocketed thanks to his campaign against corruption, which ended the impunity of the children of Dos Santos, seen as the arm for business his father's.
The economic crisis and the enormous resistance to carry out this authentic ethical revolution from above, were undermining Lourenço. Meanwhile, the two main leaders of the opposition and social activists were united around the front led by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita), headed by Adalberto Costa Júnior.
He has the support of one of Dos Santos' daughters, Tchizé, who assures that her father also wanted him to win. Died in Barcelona, of cancer, on July 8, the former dictator did not make a pronouncement, nor did Lourenço's attempts to reconcile with his predecessor finish bearing fruit.
Thus, the macabre family legal war over the body broke out in Barcelona. It was won by the last wife of the autocrat, Ana Paula, close to João Lourenço. They managed to get the body of Dos Santos to land in Luanda on Saturday, against the criteria of the eldest sons, several of them persecuted by the justice system, for which they will not be at the funeral.
On Saturday Lourenço held his last big rally and the axis of the campaign became a yellow mansion in Miramar, the embassy district of Luanda. In the garden, in a pavilion, is the coveted coffin, awaiting the funeral on Sunday. The assistance does not seem to be much less massive, but there it is.
Lourenço's movements with the Dos Santos family are the best reflection that he does not see victory as clearly as he would like, after 61% of 2017, or even has some fear of losing. If it fell, Angola would enter a transition, with the first alternation in history and when Unita, loser of the civil war, came to power against the MPLA.
Only in 1992 were there competitive elections, whose second round was never held. Dos Santos obtained a lower percentage than his party in the legislative elections. This is how the simultaneous vote was established, with a single ballot that is valid for everything.
Without polls worthy of the name, analysts predict Lourenço's victory, by hook or by crook, with the consensus that, whatever happens, the day after will be complex.
Angola is a drama made country. It is estimated that between 1500 and 1866, 5.7 million slaves left its shores. Between 1961 and 2002 he was at war, for independence, first and civil, later. Its natural resources, such as oil and diamonds, do not prevent the majority of the population from living in misery, governed by Marxists who embraced savage capitalism.
