Today’s Jornal de Angola informs of the passing yesterday of Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa,
at the Parisian hospital where he had been interned since last July after suffering a cerebral thrombosis in Egypt on the eve of a African Union Summit meeting.
Trained as a lawyer, Mwanawasa was the third Zambian President after the country’s independence from Britain in 1964 and the first without links to liberation movements.
According to the country’s constitution, elections are to be held in 90 days to establish a new President.
In the A Capital, journalist Mario Paiva evaluates the forces at presence in the current legislative elections campaign and asks whether the country is facing "aged hopes or vulgar changes":
The performance of the opposition suggests an unpreparedness for a long-run race: while UNITA throws itself to the “consolidation of the electoral markets”, a handful of politicians doesn’t assume any ambitious objective; the vulgarization of “change”, the absence of confrontation of ideas and the lack of political assertiveness only helps to reinforce the banality of the supposed lesser evil: the status quo.
The MPLA, as the situation party, armed itself with an expected luggage: the alleged economic performance of the post-war, insufficient to claim governance efficiency credits but enough to insufflate the common place of the acquired experience and turn hopes even more aged and vague. Three decades of government, mostly under the first Republic, the one-party system and the absolute power, brought about the experience that made the party state a heavy reality in Angola.
To begin with, the governing party was on an advantageous starting position, due to the disproportion of material, financial and human resources, albeit weakened by the prolonged exercise of power, stained by authoritarianism and corruption. A careful propaganda campaign based on the recently attained peace, the multiplicity of public works and the take-off of some younger so-called technocrat executives, among other factors, did the rest.
Still in the same paper, an interview with Fernando Pacheco, president of the Consultative Board of the Angolan NGO ‘Action for the Rural Development and the Environment’ (ADRA):
According to Fernando Pacheco, Third World government officials are more concerned with their access to power and clientelism once they get there than with achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He further asserts that, in the Angolan case, such disregard for the MDGs is compounded by the politicians’ lack of awareness of its main items. For him, the MDGs will only start to be seriously debated in Angola when President Eduardo dos Santos decides to talk about them, as happened with the bio-fuels: “The political parties should talk more often about the MDGs. They should incorporate that concern in their programs.”
Asked whether he thought the country could meet the 2015 target year to achieve the MDGs, Fernando Pacheco expressed his scepticism, arguing that it would require a rapid change of government policies in some sectors of the economy to fight poverty: “This is an issue of government ethics and policy. More attention needs to be paid to family agriculture. There is need to create services and access to services can only be guaranteed by the state. It is necessary above all, to improve the living standards of the population. (…) There is need to improve schooling levels and the gender balance, because the more women have access to services, particularly to education, the more able they will be to contribute to GDP and to improve their family’s incomes and living conditions.”
The Novo Jornal reproduces an article first appeared in the Portuguese newspaper Diario Economico, about the expansion of business interests of the Angolan state oil company, Sonangol, in Portugal:
The most powerful Angolan company, Sonangol, already has deciding stakes in some of the biggest Portuguese companies, such as BCP, Galp and Amorim Energia and wants to buy into EDP, PT and ZON, in a strategy led by a discreet and implacable engineer with precious allies, Manuel Vicente. As a result of that strategy, in less than a year, Sonangol became the second biggest stakeholder of Millennium BCP bank, with a 7% stake, which it already announced its intention to increase. Besides the bank, the company has been investing in the main strategic sectors of the Portuguese economy: it controls 15% of Galp (through a 45% stake in Amorim Energy), has a partnership with Portugal Telecom (PT) at Unitel (an Angolan telecommunications operator) and has already expressed interest in entering the energy and natural gas sectors. ZON Multimedia, according to several sources in the market, is the next target.
Manuel Vicente has been at the helm of Sonangol and leading the company’s internationalisation for the last ten years. However, in spite of centralising all decisions, he doesn’t go ahead without President Dos Santos’ clearance. Almost every week, Manuel Vicente goes to the presidential palace, in Luanda, to dispatch personally with the President on the most important business of the Angolan most powerful company. This reveals a lot: first, that all strategic decisions of the company, including investments in Portugal, go through José Eduardo dos Santos; second, that Manuel Vicente is a man who has the trust of the politician.
Finally, also in the Novo Jornal, an interview with John Marcum, an American political scientist who is a close observer of Angolan politics since 1962 and was recently in the country to attend a Conference on Politics and Civil Society organised by the Catholic University of Angola:
You once wrote that “Angola was destined to be the experimental field of the desire and power of the post-Vietnam America.” Why Angola?
At independence, the military power had collapsed. There was no perspective of elections, much less of a coalition government. At the same time, there was the Cold War and the question was thus posed: either support one side or the other. For quite a long time I positioned myself publicly against the US support to UNITA or to any other party, because to me an intervention in this country didn’t make any sense. The American policy in relation to Angola, like that of the entire international community, was a huge failure. Later, in 1992, the United Nations supposedly should disarm the MPLA and UNITA forces, create a unique army and organise local elections. However, instead of that, it left the military situation in the open, promoted elections where “the winner took all and the loser took nothing”, and didn’t go ahead with the suffrage at the local level, important to establish “bottom-up” power structures. We all know the consequences.
16 years later, how do you evaluate Angola’s relationship with the international community?
Today the Angolan context is substantially different, although paradoxical. The external factor is not as strong in terms of governance. But there are the effects of the so-called “Dutch disease”, which happens when a country with immense resources is rich from the macro-economic viewpoint , but its richness is irresponsibly managed by those in power (I am not making any specific allegation, that’s what happens in global terms). The US and Europe are very dependent on oil, therefore they do not pressurise the producing countries to change their policies, because they don’t want to “offend” them. But, at the same time, it’s those resources which finance, for instance, the construction of buildings in Luanda and other projects. However, the areas of production must be diversified.
But that’s exactly the government’s official discourse, although, in practice the results are still below expectations.
That’s the opinion of the analysts. Sometimes money speaks louder.
Were these the values the old liberation movements fought for?
At the Accra Conference (the first Conference of African Peoples, in Ghana, which reunited leaders such as Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah, in 1958) the delegates were very optimistic in relation to Africa’s capacity to institute truly democratic regimes and avoid civil wars. Nobody expected this underdevelopment and authoritarianism. But there was no tradition of opposition and the European governments, and above all the Portuguese, didn’t develop the population’s analytical capacity. However, if we look retrospectively to the years I’ve been in Angola (1962, 1984,1992, and now), I would say that some things are evolving in a very constructive way, that time will heal the wounds and education will be expanded. Human beings want to be free and that’s what will prevail. But it won’t be easy.
The MPLA, as the situation party, armed itself with an expected luggage: the alleged economic performance of the post-war, insufficient to claim governance efficiency credits but enough to insufflate the common place of the acquired experience and turn hopes even more aged and vague. Three decades of government, mostly under the first Republic, the one-party system and the absolute power, brought about the experience that made the party state a heavy reality in Angola.
To begin with, the governing party was on an advantageous starting position, due to the disproportion of material, financial and human resources, albeit weakened by the prolonged exercise of power, stained by authoritarianism and corruption. A careful propaganda campaign based on the recently attained peace, the multiplicity of public works and the take-off of some younger so-called technocrat executives, among other factors, did the rest.
Still in the same paper, an interview with Fernando Pacheco, president of the Consultative Board of the Angolan NGO ‘Action for the Rural Development and the Environment’ (ADRA):
According to Fernando Pacheco, Third World government officials are more concerned with their access to power and clientelism once they get there than with achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He further asserts that, in the Angolan case, such disregard for the MDGs is compounded by the politicians’ lack of awareness of its main items. For him, the MDGs will only start to be seriously debated in Angola when President Eduardo dos Santos decides to talk about them, as happened with the bio-fuels: “The political parties should talk more often about the MDGs. They should incorporate that concern in their programs.”Asked whether he thought the country could meet the 2015 target year to achieve the MDGs, Fernando Pacheco expressed his scepticism, arguing that it would require a rapid change of government policies in some sectors of the economy to fight poverty: “This is an issue of government ethics and policy. More attention needs to be paid to family agriculture. There is need to create services and access to services can only be guaranteed by the state. It is necessary above all, to improve the living standards of the population. (…) There is need to improve schooling levels and the gender balance, because the more women have access to services, particularly to education, the more able they will be to contribute to GDP and to improve their family’s incomes and living conditions.”
The Novo Jornal reproduces an article first appeared in the Portuguese newspaper Diario Economico, about the expansion of business interests of the Angolan state oil company, Sonangol, in Portugal:
The most powerful Angolan company, Sonangol, already has deciding stakes in some of the biggest Portuguese companies, such as BCP, Galp and Amorim Energia and wants to buy into EDP, PT and ZON, in a strategy led by a discreet and implacable engineer with precious allies, Manuel Vicente. As a result of that strategy, in less than a year, Sonangol became the second biggest stakeholder of Millennium BCP bank, with a 7% stake, which it already announced its intention to increase. Besides the bank, the company has been investing in the main strategic sectors of the Portuguese economy: it controls 15% of Galp (through a 45% stake in Amorim Energy), has a partnership with Portugal Telecom (PT) at Unitel (an Angolan telecommunications operator) and has already expressed interest in entering the energy and natural gas sectors. ZON Multimedia, according to several sources in the market, is the next target. Manuel Vicente has been at the helm of Sonangol and leading the company’s internationalisation for the last ten years. However, in spite of centralising all decisions, he doesn’t go ahead without President Dos Santos’ clearance. Almost every week, Manuel Vicente goes to the presidential palace, in Luanda, to dispatch personally with the President on the most important business of the Angolan most powerful company. This reveals a lot: first, that all strategic decisions of the company, including investments in Portugal, go through José Eduardo dos Santos; second, that Manuel Vicente is a man who has the trust of the politician.Finally, also in the Novo Jornal, an interview with John Marcum, an American political scientist who is a close observer of Angolan politics since 1962 and was recently in the country to attend a Conference on Politics and Civil Society organised by the Catholic University of Angola:
You once wrote that “Angola was destined to be the experimental field of the desire and power of the post-Vietnam America.” Why Angola?
At independence, the military power had collapsed. There was no perspective of elections, much less of a coalition government. At the same time, there was the Cold War and the question was thus posed: either support one side or the other. For quite a long time I positioned myself publicly against the US support to UNITA or to any other party, because to me an intervention in this country didn’t make any sense. The American policy in relation to Angola, like that of the entire international community, was a huge failure. Later, in 1992, the United Nations supposedly should disarm the MPLA and UNITA forces, create a unique army and organise local elections. However, instead of that, it left the military situation in the open, promoted elections where “the winner took all and the loser took nothing”, and didn’t go ahead with the suffrage at the local level, important to establish “bottom-up” power structures. We all know the consequences.
16 years later, how do you evaluate Angola’s relationship with the international community?
Today the Angolan context is substantially different, although paradoxical. The external factor is not as strong in terms of governance. But there are the effects of the so-called “Dutch disease”, which happens when a country with immense resources is rich from the macro-economic viewpoint , but its richness is irresponsibly managed by those in power (I am not making any specific allegation, that’s what happens in global terms). The US and Europe are very dependent on oil, therefore they do not pressurise the producing countries to change their policies, because they don’t want to “offend” them. But, at the same time, it’s those resources which finance, for instance, the construction of buildings in Luanda and other projects. However, the areas of production must be diversified.
But that’s exactly the government’s official discourse, although, in practice the results are still below expectations.
That’s the opinion of the analysts. Sometimes money speaks louder.
Were these the values the old liberation movements fought for?
At the Accra Conference (the first Conference of African Peoples, in Ghana, which reunited leaders such as Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah, in 1958) the delegates were very optimistic in relation to Africa’s capacity to institute truly democratic regimes and avoid civil wars. Nobody expected this underdevelopment and authoritarianism. But there was no tradition of opposition and the European governments, and above all the Portuguese, didn’t develop the population’s analytical capacity. However, if we look retrospectively to the years I’ve been in Angola (1962, 1984,1992, and now), I would say that some things are evolving in a very constructive way, that time will heal the wounds and education will be expanded. Human beings want to be free and that’s what will prevail. But it won’t be easy.
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