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(Bloomberg) — Angolan President Joao Lourenço on Wednesday faced opposition leader Adalberto Costa Junior in the country’s closest election since the end of a civil war two decades ago.
The vote comes as the South African country recovers from a five-year recession that has deepened unemployment and poverty and sparked sporadic street protests in the capital, Luanda. Polling stations opened at 7 a. m. in the country’s 18 provinces and no incidents were reported. , according to Lucas Quilundo, spokesman for Angola’s national electoral commission.
Both applicants submitted proposals to create jobs by diversifying Angola’s oil-dependent economy, reducing the role of government in the economy and fostering private-sector-led development.
Here are some of the key demanding situations the new president will face:
Economic growth
Angola’s economy is expected to grow by 3% in 2022, after emerging from a five-year recession last year. But this expansion still relies heavily on the oil sector, which accounts for at least 83% of its export revenue, with China accounting for 61% of its sales.
Angola’s dependence on oil exports makes it the least complex economy in the world, according to Harvard University’s Growth Lab. While crude oil production is expected to continue to decline as primary production fields mature, Angola urgently wants to diversify its economy away from oil.
living costs
Luanda was once regarded as the world’s most beloved city for expats. While domestic food production has increased, Angola’s small production base and weak intracontinental industry mean that many supermarket shelves are still full of products imported from Portugal.
Annual inflation in Angola has declined in recent months, after the central bank raised rates to an all-time high, still above 20 percent. This forced the government to launch a program to move cash to vulnerable families and suspend import taxes on critical food products. .
However, many Angolans continue to struggle to make ends meet: the World Bank estimates that more than a portion of its 33 million people live on less than $2 a day. The lack of purchasing power means angolans face food insecurity, poor public education and reduced access to housing and essentials such as sanitation and water.
Read: Global Outlier Angola has a chance to cut as the currency jumps
Debt sustainability
Rising oil costs have allowed Angola to repay some of its existing debt and diversify its financing resources outside of China, whose $19 billion in loans account for about 40% of the country’s external debt, according to S.
Fitch Ratings forecasts that Angola’s central government debt will fall to 56. 5% of gross domestic product in 2022, up from 79. 7% in 2021 and 123. 8% in 2020. This will allow the government in the long run to invest more of its revenue in improving life. of Angolans instead of paying off the debt, Finance Minister Vera Daves de Sousa said in an interview on May 15.
Transplant Combat
Corruption, whether small or large, has flourished in Angola. Lourenço made the fight against corruption a top priority when he came to power in 2017. His management estimates that more than $24 billion was looted during the nearly four decades of reign. his predecessor, José Eduardo dos Santos.
While Angola has improved its rating on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index since 2017, corruption remains rampant. Opposition parties accuse Lourenço of his anti-corruption crusade as a smokescreen to divert attention from the country’s economic woes and settle accounts with Dos Santos.
Read: Circle of Relatives of Dos Santos Asks for Forgiveness After Death of Former Angolan Leader
Unemployed young people
The number of unemployed young people in Angola is estimated at 57%, according to the National Institute of Statistics of Angola. This is almost double the official unemployment rate of 30. 2%. An estimated 79% of Angolans depend on the informal economy to survive. , as known to the Angolan Institute of Statistics.
The lack of employment opportunities is a major fear for policymakers in a country where the average age is 16. 7 and the fertility rate is 5. 55 in line with women, one of the world’s, according to World Population Review.
(Updates with vote from the paragraph of the moment)
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