Incumbent heading for easy election win

ANGOLA: Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s ruling MPLA party is heading for a comfortable election win, with 74.46 per cent of the vote after more than half had been counted, electoral officials said yesterday.

Provisional results of Friday’s vote from the national elections commission put the MPLA well ahead of its nearest rivals. The election had been criticised by opposition leaders as being one-sided and plagued with irregularities.

Under the constitution, an MPLA win means Dos Santos, 70, is elected for a further five years on top of the 32 he has already served in Africa’s second largest oil producer.