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Angola Government and Politics
![[GIF]](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/angola/ao04_00a.gif)
Angolans march at a political rally.
AFTER THIRTEEN YEARS of guerrilla warfare, Angola finally
escaped
from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975, but with few of the
resources needed to govern an independent nation. When an
effort to
form a coalition government comprising three liberation
movements
failed, a civil war ensued. The Popular Movement for the
Liberation
of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola --
MPLA)
emerged from the civil war to proclaim a Marxist-Leninist
one-party
state. The strongest of the disenfranchised movements, the
National
Union for the Total Independence of Angola (União Nacional
para a
Independência Total de Angola -- UNITA), continued to
battle for
another thirteen years, shifting the focus of its
opposition from
the colonial power to the MPLA government. In late 1988,
the social
and economic disorder resulting from a quarter-century of
violence
had a pervasive effect on both individual lives and
national
politics.
Angola's 1975 Constitution, revised in 1976 and 1980,
ratifies
the socialist revolution but also guarantees some rights
of private
ownership. The ruling party, renamed the Popular Movement
for the
Liberation of Angola-Workers' Party (Movimento Popular de
Libertação de Angola-Partido de Trabalho--MPLA-PT) in
1977, claimed
the power of the state. Although formally subordinate to
the party,
the government consolidated substantial power in its
executive
branch. The president was head of the MPLA-PT, the
government, the
military, and most important bodies within the party and
the
government. In his first nine years in office (1979-88),
President
José Eduardo dos Santos further strengthened the
presidency,
broadening the influence of a small circle of advisers and
resisting pressure to concentrate more power within the
MPLA-PT.
His primary goal was economic development rather than
ideological
rigor, but at the same time dos Santos considered the
MPLA-PT the
best vehicle for building a unified, prosperous nation.
Among the first actions taken by the MPLA-PT was its
conversion
into a vanguard party to lead in the transformation to
socialism.
Throughout the 1980s, the MPLA-PT faced the daunting task
of
mobilizing the nation's peasants, most of whom were
concerned with
basic survival, subsistence farming, and avoiding the
destruction
of the ongoing civil war. Only a small minority of
Angolans were
party members, but even this group was torn by internal
disputes.
Factional divisions were drawn primarily along racial and
ideological lines, but under dos Santos influence within
the MPLAPT gradually shifted from mestiço (see Glossary) to
black
African leadership and from party ideologues to relative
political
moderates.
Mass organizations were affiliated with the party in
accordance
with Marxist-Leninist dogma. In the face of continued
insurgent
warfare and deteriorating living standards, however, many
social
leaders chafed at party discipline and bureaucratic
controls. Dos
Santos worked to build party loyalty and to respond to
these
tensions, primarily by attempting to improve the material
rewards
of Marxist-Leninist state building. His greatest obstacle,
however,
was the destabilizing effect of UNITA and its South
African
sponsors; Angola's role as a victim of South Africa's
destructive
regional policies was central to its international image
during the
1980s.
In December 1988, Angola, South Africa, and Cuba
reached a
long-sought accord that promised to improve Luanda's
relations with
Pretoria. The primary goals of the United States-brokered
talks
were to end South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia
and remove
Cuba's massive military presence from Angola. Vital
economic
assistance from the United States was a corollary benefit
of the
peace process, conditioned on Cuba's withdrawal and the
MPLA-PT's
rapprochement with UNITA. Despite doubts about the
intentions of
all three parties to the accord, international hopes for
peace in
southwestern Africa were high.
Data as of February 1989
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