Political Parties in Angola

Parliamentary elections will be held in Angola in 2008, as the first elections since 1992. There are now almost 100 political parties registered in Angola, with the ruling party MPLA as predominant.

The first part of this project will be a descriptive study of the political parties of Angola; an inventory of the (main) political parties at the eve of the elections. We will describe the development of the political parties, party financing and the electoral system, and we will describe and typify the political parties along a number of indicators, including structures and democracy. This descriptive first part will be available in English and Portuguese before the parliamentary elections.

The second part of this project will look at the Angolan political parties' ability to aggregate and articulate collective social preferences, and to transform these into practical policies. The study will also look at the parties' ability to mobilise electoral support, to represent people and various interests throughout the election period, and issues of party responsiveness and representativity. This study will analyse possible structural barriers to party consolidation (for instance poverty, clientelism, personalisation and authoritarianism), and the processes of interest aggregation, leadership, participation and socialisation, bargaining and coalition making.