The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
The presidential candidate from Angola’s ruling party, Joao Lourenco, promised to push hard to diversify the oil-rich African nation’s economy, while his fragmented opposition questioned the fairness of next week’s vote and threatened to hold protests.
In the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola’s last campaign gathering ahead of the Aug. 23 vote, Lourenco predicted the MPLA would win with a two-thirds majority, in line with recent polling. The victor will replace the retiring President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who attended the rally and whose 38 years in power, presiding over an oil boom and bust since the end of a decades-long civil war, make him the continent’s second-longest-serving ruler.
Angola, Africa’s second-biggest oil producer, is struggling to overcome the worst economic crisis since emerging from a civil war in 2002. Opposition parties have blamed the MPLA, in power since Angola’s independence from Portugal in 1975, for widespread corruption and for not doing enough to fight poverty.
“We believe that with your vote we will erect an economy based on farming, industry, tourism, fishing and other important sectors,†Lourenco, 63, said in a speech in the Camama district, on the outskirts of the capital, Luanda, as thousands of supporters dressed in the red and black colors of his party cheered on.