Since the two-year anniversary of the January 25 Revolution, Egypt has seen numerous clashes between anti-government demonstrators and security forces.Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Feb 17 2013 (IPS)

Since the second anniversary of the uprising that ended the Mubarak regime, Egypt has witnessed a spate of political violence. Egypt’s opposition led by the high-profile National Salvation Front (NSF) blames President Mohamed Morsi for the bloodshed, but many blame the NSF and its leaders.

“The NSF’s slowness in condemning recent violence has made it appear to the public as if it were condoning – even inciting – acts of violence and sabotage,” Amr Hashim Rabie, senior analyst at the Cairo-based Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told IPS.

Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition, he added, “may pay the price for this perception in upcoming parliamentary elections.”

The second anniversary of Egypt’s Jan. 25 Revolution and its aftermath have been accompanied by outbreaks of violence across the country. NSF-led rallies and marches have led to numerous clashes between anti-government protesters and police that have so far left more than 50 dead, including security personnel.

Monday Feb. 11, the second anniversary of Mubarak’s ouster, saw renewed skirmishes between aggressive protesters and police outside the presidential palace in Cairo. In what has become a new means of expressing political dissent, anti-government protesters also cut Cairo’s metro line and blocked the capital’s busy 6 October Bridge.

In recent months, the NSF – a loose coalition of opposition parties and groups headed by Amr Moussa, Hamdeen Sabbahi (both of whom lost to Morsi in presidential polls last summer) and Mohamed ElBaradei – has taken the lead in articulating the demands of Egypt’s non-Islamist opposition. These demands include amendment of Egypt’s new constitution, the appointment of a new government, and the dismissal of a Morsi-appointed prosecutor-general.

Opposition spokesmen have been quick to blame President Morsi for the recent bloodshed, along with the Muslim Brotherhood group from which he hails. But according to Rabie, most of the public – weary after months of political turmoil – holds the NSF-led opposition directly responsible for much of the ongoing violence and mayhem.

“Recent opinion polls show that most Egyptians blame the NSF for sowing chaos and inciting bloodshed, damaging property both public and private, and hurting the economy by damaging Egypt’s already-reeling tourism industry,” he said.

Rabie attributed this perception to failures by the NSF to speedily condemn recent acts of violence and sabotage. “The NSF has been woefully slow in distancing itself from violent acts because it hasn’t wanted to alienate the non-peaceful activists who answered its calls for anti-government rallies.”

Conversations with several average Egyptians appeared to support Rabie’s assertions.

“I had been planning to vote against the Brotherhood in upcoming parliamentary polls, but given the opposition’s recent aggressive behaviour, I’m going to give my vote to the Brotherhood candidate,” said Karim, a 39-year-old Cairo physician who preferred not to give his last name.

Ahmed Kamel, spokesman for Amr Moussa (head of the liberal Conference Party and leading NSF member), rejected the notion that the public blamed the NSF for bloodshed.

Describing recent opinion polls to this effect as “unscientific,” Kamel told IPS: “The NSF did not call for or incite any of the recent violence, at the presidential palace or elsewhere. The NSF simply voices the people’s demands.”

But if the NSF wants to speak for people, “it should focus on electoral campaigning with a view to winning a majority in parliament,” said Azab Mustafa, prominent member of both the Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). “Until then, it can’t claim to speak on behalf of ‘the people’.”

Mustafa added: “The NSF should be trying to win over voters instead of calling for endless, potentially-violent demonstrations, which only serve to hurt the economy and give western critics a chance to say Egypt ‘isn’t ready for democracy’.”

Kamel, for his part, responded by saying that the NSF was “more than ready” to contest elections as long as the polling was subject to “complete judicial and international oversight” and the Brotherhood “reveals all the sources of its campaign funding.”

Recent political violence has also featured attacks on Brotherhood/FJP offices and on those of Brotherhood-affiliated government officials, garnering for the group and its party a measure of public sympathy. NSF-led rallies and marches, meanwhile, have frequently targeted the presidential palace, which during one recent demonstration was struck with a petrol bomb.

“Protesters have the right to demonstrate peacefully in public areas,” said the Brotherhood’s Mustafa. “But most of the recent NSF-led marches in Cairo have specifically targeted the presidential palace, which Egyptian security forces are duty-bound to protect, and all these have inevitably ended in violence.”

According to Rabie, the months-long conflict between the NSF-led opposition and the presidency has seen three major battles for public opinion.

The first over Morsi’s controversial November decree overriding the judiciary, and the second over December’s contentious constitutional referendu. These were, said Rabie, “both won by the opposition, with which much of the public sympathised.”

But, he added, the presidency and the Brotherhood appear to have won the third round. “The NSF has succeeded in mobilising mass anti-Morsi rallies and marches, but the Brotherhood has won in terms of broad public sympathy, which could translate into electoral gains.”

According to official statements, parliamentary elections are likely to be held in April or May.

Egypt’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls in late 2011 were swept by Islamist parties, chief among them the Brotherhood. The assembly was dissolved last summer on orders of the ruling military then, after Egypt’s High Constitutional Court ruled it illegitimate on a technicality.

This time around, Rabie expects Islamist parties to capture a smaller share than they did in 2011, when together they won almost three-quarters of parliament’s lower house. “But due to its superior organisation and electoral experience, especially in the case of the Brotherhood, the Islamist camp will likely maintain a parliamentary majority,” he said.

“And if the NSF-led opposition maintains its current strategy of staging rallies that lead to clashes with police and impeding public transportation,” Rabie added, “it will pay a heavy price at the ballot box.”

The destroyed headquarters of Uzenmunaigas, the company at the heart of the protracted labour dispute in the oil town of Zhanaozen in December 2011. Credit: Joanna Lillis/IPS.

By Paul Bartlett
ALMATY, Kazakhstan, Nov 29 2012 (IPS)

This December will see the first anniversary of unrest which left at least 15 dead in the oil town of Zhanaozen in western Kazakhstan. As Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy visits the Kazakhstan capital Astana on Nov. 30, concerns are being raised that the last year has seen a serious erosion of rights in this Central Asian country, with political, civil and media liberties being curbed, as the authorities in Astana construct their narrative about what went wrong in Zhanaozen.

The main target of Astana’s ire has been the unregistered Alga! Party. On Nov. 20 the General Prosecutor’s office announced it was seeking a court order prohibiting the activities of Alga! and its ally the People’s Front movement in Kazakhstan. It labelled the unregistered organisations “extremist” and also applied to ban two independent newspapers Respublika and Vyzglad, along with a number of associated websites.

The crackdown comes a week after Kazakhstan was elected as a representative to the UN Human Rights Council for a three-year term and a day after Vladimir Kozlov, the head of Alga!, lost an appeal against his seven-and-a-half year sentence for plotting to overthrow the government and fomenting the unrest in Zhanaozen, which grew out of a protracted oil sector strike.

Mikhail Sizov, deputy chairman of the Alga! coordination committee told IPS by telephone that he was not surprised by the failure of the appeal. “Since the very outset, since Vladimir Kozlov’s very arrest, it was obvious that it was a political order, an order to isolate Vladimir from society. So we did not expect the court of appeal to be able to change anything today.”

International advocacy groups also expressed concern about Kozlov’s jailing and the failed appeal.

“The rejected appeal further consolidates authoritarian trends in Kazakshtan,” said Susan Corke, director for Euraisa programmes at Freedom House. “The government of Kazakhstan tries to promote an image of stability and democratic reform, but until all can be guaranteed the right to a fair trial, including for legitimate political activities, this will not be true in practice.”

The U.S. also expressed concern over Kozlov’s conviction and “the apparent use of the criminal system to silence opposition” in Kazakhstan. Yet Kazakhstan’s government, led by strongman President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been in power for over two decades and brooks little dissent, rejects allegations that the post-Zhanaozen landscape is marred by an erosion of civil liberties. After Kozlov was first sentenced on Oct. 8, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Altay Abibullayev defended the legal process, calling Kozlov’s sentence “the result of an impartial and objective investigation” He pointed to the fact that the trial was open and that media and civil society groups were granted free access.

During the trial Kozlov was accused of working in tandem with disgraced banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, operating his Alga! party – which the government has long refused to register so that it can operate legally – as a “criminal group”. The Kazakh authorities claim that the party is bankrolled by Ablyazov, who has been in hiding since fleeing London in March after he was sentenced to 22 months in prison by a UK court . He was being sued for fraud when he was convicted for concealing his assets in violation of a court order.

A total of 17 protesters and former oil workers from Zhanaozen have been imprisoned in relation to unrest in trials marred by allegations that evidence had been coerced out of suspects by torture. Six members of the security forces are serving sentences over the violent deaths, which occurred when police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators. Three local officials have been jailed on charges of graft that Astana says fuelled disaffection in Zhanaozen.

Astana’s critics say political freedoms have come under threat in Kazakhstan in the last year. An election in January replaced Kazakhstan’s previous one-party parliament with a multi-party legislature – but all three parties in the parliament are loyal to President Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan has never held an election deemed free and fair by international observers.

Parties that are critical of President Nazarbayev do not fare so well. The future of Alga! – one of Kazakhstan’s few genuine opposition voices – is unclear. “It’s quite hard to talk about the future of the organisation (Alga!),” Sizov told IPS. “Of course we could be declared an extremist organisation, we could be declared an organisation that has been part of Mukhtar Ablyazov’s organised criminal group, they could pin something else on us.”

Kazakhstan’s other genuine opposition force, OSDP Azat, was vocal in the aftermath of the January parliamentary vote, holding monthly protests – but these gatherings petered out by June after some of the party leaders had served short prison terms for rallying without official permission, a crime in Kazakhstan despite the right to do so being enshrined in the constitution.

Kazakhstan’s independent media has also been under pressure in the aftermath of Zhanaozen. In January Igor Vinyavsky, editor of the weekly newspaper Vzyglad was detained on charges of seeking to overthrow the state, but was then amnestied in March. The Respublika newspaper, which the authorities allege is funded by Ablyazov, has also felt the squeeze, with its journalists hauled in for interrogation by the security services. The verdict in Kozlov’s trial alleged that he and Ablyazov used Respublika and other media to incite unrest.

State-controlled media, meanwhile, have launched blistering attacks on Kozlov, Ablyazov and Alga!. The Khabar TV channel broadcast a scurrilous documentary on Nov. 15 which linked Ablyazov with the financing of the party and portrayed it as a money-making exercise. Two days earlier human rights activists Galym Ageleuov and Murat Tungishbayev were named in an article in the state-run Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper which accused them of being “paid servants” of Kozlov and Ablyazov.

Sizov said the space for civil liberties had shrunk over the last year. “There is a feeling of fear. Freedoms have become fewer, and fear has become greater,” he told IPS and yet he maintains change will come: “The process of liberation of citizens is all the same inevitable. Sooner or later there will be a change of regime and democracy will come. It is a question of time.” (End)

Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has been in power for 33 years, and will serve another five-year term of office after his party’s landslide victory, which the opposition claims is fraudulent. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

By Louise Redvers
LUANDA, Sep 4 2012 (IPS)

Question marks hang over the legitimacy of Angola’s general election as Africa’s second-longest serving leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos has won a five-year term in office following his party’s landslide victory.

The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) – which has ruled Angola since independence from Portugal in 1975 – secured a parliamentary majority of just under 72 percent.

Its former civil war enemy, the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), is second with nearly 19 percent, almost doubling its 2008 tally. Third is the newly-formed Salvation–Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE) which won six percent of the vote, according to provisional results released by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) on Monday, Sep. 4.

But while the MPLA – whose lavish campaign is reported to have cost over 70 million dollars – is celebrating its win, UNITA, CASA-CE and civil society groups are understood to be working on legal challenges to contest the results.

Once the final results are in, there is a 48-hour window available for a party to lodge a legal challenge with the southern African nation’s constitutional court.

In a statement issued on Sep. 3, UNITA said it was running its own parallel counting and was following the provisional results being presented by the CNE.

UNITA accused the CNE of using government security staff to run polling stations, questioned its processes for transmission of data, and complained about how many party delegates and observers had not been able to get accreditation to monitor proceedings.

The party has been critical of the CNE and its preparation for the election for some months, alleging fraudulent manipulation on the part of the MPLA. Complaints have centred around voter lists, the way they were compiled, audited and shared.

UNITA claims thousands of “ghost voters” have been added to the rolls and that the delay in publishing the final list would prevent many people from voting.

“We will not allow a brand of fraud to take place and we will not recognise the legitimacy of any government resulting from elections held outside of the law,” UNITA leader Isaías Samakuva said a week before the vote was due to take place.

On Aug. 31, the day of the elections, many people – exact numbers are unknown – were unable to vote due because they were unable to find their names on the voters’ list. Some were told that they were actually registered to vote several hundred kilometres away in another province.

The provisional results from the CNE indicate turnout was down significantly from 80 percent in 2008 to 60 percent this year. Turnout was significantly lower in the capital Luanda at around 50 percent.

However, teams from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the Community of Portuguese Language Speaking Countries praised Angola’s CNE for the way it organised the election.

The AU mission chief, Cape Verde’s former President Pedro Pires, noted some issues with delayed accreditation of party delegations and observers, unfair access to public media space and a failure to allow diaspora voting. However, Pires said overall the election was “free, fair, transparent and credible”.

Bernand Membe, Tanzania’s Foreign Affairs Minister who headed the SADC mission, acknowledged some of the claims made by opposition parties but said: “We are of the opinion that while some of the issues raised were pertinent, they were nevertheless not of such magnitude as to have affected the credibility of the overall electoral process.”

Angolan musician and activist Luaty Beirao, who has been involved in various anti-government street protests and has helped set up a website that has been publishing complaints from the public about the election, told IPS that he was very disappointed in the observation missions’ standpoint.

“How can these elections be considered fair?” he asked.

“How can you say that thing went well just because there were no fights and people were not throwing stuff at cars or burning tyres in the street?

“Peaceful is not the only the way we analyse if an election was fair and free. We must analyse the high numbers of people who were not able to vote.”

Beirao, who has been jailed several times for his activism, added: “This election was rigged and this government is not legitimate.”

The CNE has denied any wrongdoing and the MPLA has accused the opposition of making up allegations of fraud to distract from their poor results.

The MPLA, however, has already claimed victory and many ordinary Angolans seemed oblivious of UNITA’s claims.

Avelino Pacheco, 22, from Luanda, told IPS: “In my opinion these elections went very well and we were free to chose who we wanted. The people have chosen the MPLA and President dos Santos.

“There was no fraud, we must respect the choice of the people,” the statistics student said.

A woman, waiting in a taxi queue who did not want to give her name, told IPS: “It doesn’t really matter about the result though, the MPLA is in power and will be for a long time. We should just accept it.”

Six other parties and coalitions, including the historic National Front for the Liberation of Angola and the Party of Social Renovation, shared the remaining three percent.

The country’s 27-year civil war only ended in 2002 and since independence in 1975 Angola has only had two previous elections.

The 2008 poll passed peacefully despite widespread allegations of vote-rigging, but the election in 1992 was abandoned midway and triggered a second phase of the civil war that lasted until 2002. The first civil war began after independence in 1975 until 1991.

Under the terms of the country’s 2010 constitution, the head of the party that wins the most parliamentary votes becomes president – thus Dos Santos is returned automatically to power.

This will be the 70-year’s first official mandate, Russian-trained engineer never having previously been formally elected, despite having ruling Angola since 1979.

While the oil-rich country has enjoyed stellar growth since the end of its three-decade civil war in 2002, and is forecast to see a GDP hike of 12 percent in 2012, only a few of its people have shared in the peace dividend.

According to the United Nation’s 2011 Human Development Index, Angola ranks 148 out of 187 countries and more than half of the population lives below the poverty line without access to basic services.

Following Monday’s announcement of the death of long-time Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi, Ethiopian civil society leaders and Western rights groups are characterising the turn of events as an opportunity to heal decades of increasingly stark sectarianism.

Many are also pointing to the U.S. government’s potential role as key.

The late Ethiopian leader Meles Zenawi. Credit: Ragnhild H. Simenstad, Utenriksdepartementet/ CC by 2.0

“Meles’s death has created an opportunity for peace in Ethiopia, meaning that this transition should not be business as usual,” Getachew Begashaw, a professor of economics at Harper College here in the U.S., told IPS.

“This process needs to be something…that can put the country on the road to national reconciliation. It is important for the United States to realise that its long-term interests would be served best if we can resolve the internal conflicts of Ethiopia.”

The potential for sectarian violence has been a top concern for those attempting to plan for the death of the Ethiopian leader, who had been sick for several months. Meles ruled with an increasingly authoritarian fist for more than two decades, and many worry that his absence could leave a political vacuum.

Still undetermined is the impact that Meles’s death will have on ongoing negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan, as well as in Somalia, talks in which the Ethiopian leader has provided leadership. Currently, however, the focus for many is on more immediate concerns.

“I am afraid that a missed opportunity at this crucial point will lead to the total failure of the Ethiopian state,” Begashaw said. “Once the situation turns violent, it will be extremely difficult to turn around – we will have another Somalia. And if Ethiopia were to fail, the whole region would be massively affected.”

For all the talk about Ethiopia’s recent economic revival, many warn that this development has yet to reach the vast majority of the country’s population. Instead, much of this wealth – and political power – has been retained by the ruling party and, particularly, by the tiny Tigrayan minority community to which Meles belonged.

Already Meles’s deputy prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, has been put forward to rule until elections can be held in 2015, although a meeting of Parliament to make this move official, slated for Wednesday, was suddenly called off.

No puppet

“Meles Zenawi’s whole policy was based on short-term interest – what’s good for him, not what’s good for his nation. Today, Ethiopia is more divided today by ethnicity than ever, and that is his fault,” Obang Metho, executive director of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia, based here in Washington, told IPS.

“The U.S. in particular used Meles as puppet. For the last 20 years, they’ve put their eggs in one basket, and that basket is now gone. So, it’s time to start a new plan, one that supports the Ethiopian people and is based on mutual national interest.”

Metho and others particularly emphasise the role of the United States in the upcoming transition. The two have a long and contested relationship, as Washington has funnelled huge amounts of military and development aid to the Meles regime, particularly following the start of the US-led “war on terror”.

Today, the United States continues to run unmanned aerial “drone” flights out of a base in Ethiopia. The U.S. also continues to provide significant humanitarian aid to Ethiopia, which currently brings in more foreign aid than any other country in Africa.

“The United States must seize this opportunity to recalibrate its relationship with Ethiopia and help to build strong, accountable institutions and respect for the rule of law, lest it risk…a relationship with yet another ‘strongman’ and depend on the luck of the draw over his longevity,” Amnesty International said in a statement Tuesday.

The International Crisis Group, in a report released Wednesday, similarly called on the United States, in concert with the U.K. and E.U., to “seek to play a significant role in preparing for and shaping the transition”, especially by working to strengthen capacity within the opposition.

While the initial U.S. response , including condolences from President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, merely commended Meles for his role in strengthening Ethiopia’s democracy and economy while also noting his efforts in the civil war in Sudan, subsequent days have seen a slight shift in tone.

“We have not been shy about expressing concern … with regard to journalists’ freedom, human rights, etcetera,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said Wednesday. “We would always look for further improvements that can strengthen the system and support for people across Ethiopia.”

Going together

Strengthening the opposition and loosening the reins on civil society generally is particularly important, Begashaw said, in turning away from the spectre of potential ethnic strife in a post-Meles Ethiopia.

He said the United States needs to play a role as a “credible peace broker between the opposition and the ruling party”, ensuring that the country’s politics open up, that political prisoners are released, and that organisations outlawed by Meles on grounds of “terrorism” are reinstated.

“These groups must be given the legitimate right to peacefully to participate in the political life of the country,” Begashaw said. “We can only have peace when we are trying to accommodate everyone, so long as they are peaceful – and as far as I know, all opposition groups would like to participate peacefully.”

Doing so, he explained, will buy time, allowing civil-society leaders and community opinion-makers to “go out and start talking to political activists, encouraging them to give a chance to peaceful resolution rather than armed conflict.”

A dominant ruling party

Still, others suggest that the remnants of Meles’s regime remain so strong that there is little reason to expect an outbreak of violence anytime soon.

“The ruling party is so dominant that I seriously doubt that there will be internal turmoil. They control 99 percent of the seats at the federal, regional and local levels,” a former U.S. official and Horn of Africa expert told IPS on condition of anonymity.

“Look at the restructuring that has gone on in the past several years – the removal of the old senior leadership, bringing in a new generation of leaders, including the deputy prime minister. I think Meles knew how important a smooth transition was and saw this as the process of handing power to the next generation.”

Metho hinted that incorporating the ruling regime could well prove to be an important part of the opposition’s strategy.

“We need to make the ruling minority realise that this is a new chapter: you have nothing to be afraid of; there’s room for you in the new Ethiopia,” he said. “The old system has to be torn down, but they can be part of this.”

He continues: “We have an old proverb: If you want to go faster, go alone; if you want to go further, go together. Now’s the time to go together with all Ethiopians.”

Several dozen protestors who were arrested for taking part in a demonstration in the capital Luanda in November 2011. Credit: Louise Redvers/IPS

By Louise Redvers
JOHANNESBURG, Jul 6 2012 (IPS)

Preparations for Angola’s second peacetime polls scheduled for August are being overshadowed by allegations of electoral fraud, state media bias and growing concerns about a violent crackdown on activists and protestors.

Human Rights Watch has criticised the government for its heavy-handed response to street demonstrations by former soldiers demanding unpaid military pensions, and the lobby group said that it was worried about a series of violent attacks on youth groups known for their criticism of the government.

“The recent spate of serious abuses against protesters is an alarming sign that Angola’s government will not tolerate peaceful dissent,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director.

“The government should stop trying to silence these protests and focus on improving the election environment,” she added.

Meanwhile opposition groups are unhappy about how the elections, which are scheduled for Aug. 31, are being organised. Several parties who were on Friday Jul. 6 barred from taking part altogether – supposedly due to paperwork irregularities – are crying foul.

Of the 27 parties and coalitions who applied to run in the election, only nine have been formally approved by the Constitutional Court.

Among those rejected are the Bloco Democrático (BD), led by leading intellectual and former ruling party member Justino Pinto de Andrade; and Partido Popular, which was formed by respected human rights lawyer David Mendes.

“This is a symptom of Angolan democracy. They have deliberately blocked the parties who campaign for human rights and show solidarity to social causes,” BD secretary general, Filomeno Viera Lopes, told IPS.

The largest opposition party, União Nacional pela Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), has been cleared to run, but it remains highly critical of various aspects of the electoral process, especially around the allocation of tenders for services like the printing of ballot papers.

It is also asking whether it is really the National Electoral Commission (CNE) that is in charge of the election or the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA).

The CNE has refuted the allegations of wrongdoing and its president André da Silva Neto has said the vote will be conducted with “exemption, impartiality, transparency and fairness”.

The MPLA has also denied the fraud charges and accusations that it is targeting critical activists. Several senior figures, including President Jose Eduardo dos Santos himself, have publicly stated that the party was too big and too popular to need to cheat.

“From a judicial point of view, we have a lot of problems because the electoral commission is still violating the electoral law and we plan to formally complain to the constitutional courts about a number of issues,” UNITA spokesman Alcides Sakala said.

He complained about the state media bias towards the ruling party. He also cited a last-minute change to allow diaspora voting, despite the fact that overseas electoral registration had been restricted to embassy staff and MPLA supporters.

Sakala also expressed concern about a plan to allow police officers and the army to vote ahead of polling day.

“How will this process be monitored?” he asked. “No one will be able to control that and that raises a lot of concern from our side.”

While UNITA remains the largest party with 16 seats in parliament, it faces some stiff competition from new kid on the block Convergencia Ampla de Salvação de Angola (CASA-CE).

Formed just months ago by the highly regarded Abel Chivukuvuku, himself formerly of UNITA and with close links to the late war-time leader Jonas Savimbi, CASA-CE brings a new dynamic to the Angolan political scene.

Angolan expert Markus Weimer from London-based think tank Chatham House said that while CASA-CE could only hope to secure a few seats in parliament, its formation was ruffling feathers within the MPLA.

“I think the MPLA is worried by CASA-CE because it is an unknown,” he said. “The party has come seemingly from nowhere and from nothing and they are not quite sure how to handle them.”

Weimer said he was confident the MPLA, which has a firm grip on the country’s economy and media, both state and private, would win the vote. He added that it was crucial that the doubts over the voting process were cleared up.

“The process needs to be seen as legitimate by everyone for the MPLA’s win to be accepted,” he explained.

“The MPLA will be prepared to lose seats if it means the election is regarded as credible and legitimate.”

Angola’s experience of elections is limited, having only previously held two since the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975.

The 2008 poll passed peacefully despite widespread allegations of vote-rigging, but the election in 1992 was abandoned midway and triggered a second phase of the civil war that lasted until 2002. The first civil war began after independence in 1975 until 1991.

There are fears that if opposition parties do not feel the vote is conducted fairly, this could trigger protests and lead to unrest.

“We want to keep a positive approach and avoid this,” UNITA’s Sakala said.

“We will be insisting that the law is followed so that we can avoid other situations that can lead to other difficulties that are not good for the country.”

He said they had been encouraged by the Supreme Court’s June decision to uphold his party’s appeal against the appointment of MPLA member Suzanna Ingles to the presidency of the CNE despite only being a lawyer, and not a serving judge as the law required.

While this is a legislative election, the vote will also decide who will be Angola’s president because a controversial change in the constitution in 2010 means that the head of state is now elected from the top of the list of the party which wins the most parliamentary votes.

With the MPLA on course for what seems like another victory, Dos Santos, who has been in power for 33 years since 1979 despite never being formally elected, will be handed a new five-year term.

The length of the 69-year-old’s presidency, one of the longest in Africa, alongside widespread allegations of illicit enrichment by his family and inner circle, has been a driver for some of the recent youth protests.

Despite the country’s enormous oil wealth and impressive post-war economic growth, between half and two thirds of the population still live in poverty, many in slum-style conditions without access to running water, sanitation or electricity.

Cambodia’s fragmented opposition parties are promising to work together, rather than compete against each other for votes in the next election. All it took was another crushing victory at the polls by the country’s ruling party.

Few expected the governing Cambodian People’s Party, with Prime Minister Hun Sen at its helm, to lose in nationwide local elections held here Jun. 3. Yet the way in which it won – securing 97 percent of commune chief seats nationwide – was particularly decisive.

If the election was a barometer to gauge the political climate ahead of key parliamentary elections scheduled for 2013, then it showed that a great deal of work lies ahead for what is still a divided opposition.

Just as troubling for the opposition here is that more Cambodians than in previous elections are choosing not to vote. Election monitors say the June election drew roughly 60 percent of registered voters. This suggests a trend of declining voter turnout, from the 67 percent that voted in the previous commune elections in 2007, and the 87 percent who turned up a decade ago.

The sagging numbers could be hurting the opposition more than the ruling CPP. “The CPP know how to motivate their supporters to come to vote,” says Thun Saray, president of Adhoc, a local rights group. “They try to facilitate everything for the voters to come to vote.”

While the CPP has controlled the political landscape in Cambodia for the better part of two decades, the two largest opposition groups – the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party – run separate campaigns even though both promote a similar social justice agenda.

Saray says sympathetic would-be voters may be choosing to stay home, unable to see a viable alternative to the ruling party in a divided opposition.

“If they are separate, if they are divided among themselves like this, the voters don’t expect to have political change through the election because they already see the results,” Saray says. “One big party competes with the two small parties. You see the results.”

Those results saw the Sam Rainsy Party lose ground this month, even in areas where it is traditionally strong, such as the capital, Phnom Penh. At the same time, the Human Rights Party, competing in its first commune elections, walked away with almost as many commune chief seats as the more established SRP.

Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, says both parties were expecting a larger return at the polls, eager for momentum before next year’s important parliamentary elections. Rather than the opposition gaining ground, however, the CPP merely cemented its dominance.

Virak says the results should come as a wake-up call to the opposition. He says the parties should join forces or merge if they have any hope of mounting a significant challenge to the CPP next year.

“Smart politicians will definitely consider that and look at that option,” Virak says. “That’s probably the best option for them now.”

The parties have floated the idea of a merger before , but failed to hammer out a deal before the election. The HRP’s performance this month may give it an added bargaining chip.

In an interview, party president Kem Sokha said the low voter turnout this election is a concern. He says the two opposition parties need to cooperate “for the sake of the Cambodian people.”

“For us, we want to merge into one political party,” Sokha says. “Because if we remain separate, with separate voter lists, different political parties, we cannot combine our votes together against the ruling party.”

The SRP, for several years the clearest opposition to CPP rule in Cambodia, appears to be more amenable to the idea than in the past. Party leader Sam Rainsy remains in self-exile in Europe after fleeing prosecution for incitement that was widely seen as politically motivated. In a telephone interview after the election, Rainsy said his goal is to “unite all the opposition forces”.

The two parties plan to meet for discussions in July. But whether all the personalities can co-exist is a question mark. Rainsy, for his part, appears eager to remain the opposition figurehead.

“I don’t say if. I say when I return, inevitably in the near future, the potential of the SRP will come back,” Rainsy says. “If some voters were demotivated because of my being absent, when I return, my name is going to mobilise people.”

This remains to be seen. But before the opposition can mount a united campaign going into next year’s elections, it will have to find a compromise among its own ranks. That, says the CCHR’s Ou Virak, will be no less of a challenge.

“It’s so difficult to get these two parties to be strategic,” Virak says. “Most of them believe they’d rather see the other parties, the other politicians, just vanish, and not participate … I don’t see them being able to actually overcome this. I think it’s going to be very difficult.”

Either way, much would have to change in the next 13 months for the CPP to relinquish its dominance over Cambodian politics.

In the June election, opposition parties attempted to exploit growing discontent around controversial land evictions. A series of violent publicised evictions before the vote left the government open to criticism.

Yet while the SRP and HRP’s social justice platforms may speak to human rights concerns and the increasing number of Cambodians affected by land disputes, the election results showed that many more Cambodians are just as willing to park their votes with a government that has overseen steady economic growth and relative stability following years of war. And that may be something even a united opposition will have difficulty overcoming.