Washington, DC — "Election free and fair, sort of," was the headline from the UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) news service after Angola's long-awaited parliamentary election early this month. The news service notes that its stories do not represent the position of the United Nations, and there was no official United Nations observer team. But the comment was an accurate summary of the consensus of observers from Africa and Europe.

In Angola's last election, in 1992, for which I served as part of a multinational observer team organized by the U.S.-based International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES, http://www.ifes.org), official and unofficial observers reached roughly the same conclusion. In fact, judging by reports from Angola this time, the 1992 election was probably better organized and more transparent than the one this year, 16 years later (see my op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor, Nov 3, 1992, http://www.africafocus.org/editor/csm9211.php)

The war resumed after that 1992 election and raged for a decade, but finally concluded after Jonas Savimbi died in fighting with government troops in 2002. This time, UNITA, despite criticizing bias in the election process, accepted the results. Angolans do not expect a return to war. The oil-driven economy is booming.

Although Angola gets relatively little attention in the news, it is 2nd only to Nigeria among African oil producing countries, and ranks 6th among suppliers of oil to the United States, behind Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Iraq. Angola may rise even higher among oil producers as projected new fields go on-line.

Nevertheless, neither democracy nor prosperity is at hand for the majority of Angolans. The gap between rich and poor continues to widen, even if the oil revenue inflow is large enough that trickledown does have some effect on the majority,

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a brief post-election news report from IRIN; excerpts from a reflective analysis by Bob van der Winden, a close observer and supporter of grass-roots Angolan civil society organizations and independent media, as well as former program director of the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NiZA); and excerpts from the most recent Africa Peace Monitor from Action for Southern Africa in London, including elections results by province.