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Angola Legislative Branch
The principle of people's power was enshrined in the
223-member
People's Assembly, which replaced the Council of the
Revolution as
the nation's legislature in 1980. The primary purpose of
the
People's Assembly was to implement some degree of
participatory
democracy within the revolutionary state and to do so
outside party
confines. People's Assembly delegates did not have to be
party
members, and many were not. The planned electoral process
was the
election of 203 delegates to three-year terms by an
electoral
college. The electoral college, in turn, would be elected
by
universal suffrage. The remaining twenty delegates were to
be
elected by the Central Committee of the MPLA-PT. During
the 1980s,
implementation of this plan was obstructed by security
problems and
bureaucratic snarls. In 1980 the Central Committee elected
all
People's Assembly members. In 1983 the government's lack
of control
over many rural areas, combined with a dearth of accurate
census
data, prompted dos Santos to postpone the elections. The
1986
elections, actually held in 1987, consisted of mass
meetings at
which the names of nominees were presented on a list
prepared by
the existing People's Assembly. A few names were
challenged and
removed, but these lengthy public discussions did not
constitute
the democratic process required by the Constitution.
The People's Assembly met every six months to approve
the
national budget and development plan, enact legislation,
and
delegate responsibilities to its subcommittees. It also
elected the
twenty-five-member Permanent Commission to perform
assembly
functions between sessions. The president headed the
Permanent
Commission, which was dominated by members of the MPLA-PT
Political
Bureau. The subordination of the People's Assembly to the
MPLA-PT
was ensured by including high-level party officials among
the
former's appointed members and by frequent reminders of
the
preeminence of the party. The government's intention was
to create
people's assemblies at all levels of local administration
in order
to establish a government presence in remote areas and
promote
party-government contacts. The planned assemblies were an
important
symbol of people's power, although they were also intended
to be
controlled by the party elite.
Data as of February 1989
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