HISTORY OF ELECTORAL

In the 1992 elections, MPLA-PT won 53.74% of the votes and 129 out of 227 seats in parliament; however, eight opposition parties rejected the 1992 elections as rigged. In the next election, delayed until 2008 due to the civil war, the MPLA won 81.64% of the vote and 191 out of 220 parliamentary seats. In the 2012 legislative election, the party won 71.84% of the vote and 175 of 220 parliamentary seats. According to the 2010 constitution, this implies automatically that José Eduardo dos Santos, who has headed the list of MPLA candidates, is confirmed as State President. A salient feature of the election was the high abstention rate of 37.2%, against 12.4% in 2008. If the void and invalid votes are included in the total, only about 60% of the registered voters opted for any political party, and only about 40% for the MPLA.