Africa-Press – Angola. If free and fair elections are held in 2027, and the current situation persists, the MPLA will not win. It’s clear that, as former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson said, “in politics, a week is a long time.”
Indeed, in the political world, changes and events often occur precipitately, altering the predictable course of history. Thus, in Angola, there are approximately 100 weeks left to reverse the scenario of defeat. The problem is that the reasons for the MPLA’s likely defeat are too structural to be quickly reversed.
First, the party fell into the so-called “Tacitus trap,” an expression derived from the writings of Cornelius Tacitus, one of the greatest historians of Ancient Rome, known for his scathing critique of corruption and the moral decay of imperial power. He argued that rulers, surrounded by sycophants and isolated from reality, ended up losing their sense of justice and connection with the people. The “Tacitus trap” refers to the political phenomenon in which a ruler, even taking correct or popular measures, continues to lose support and credibility among the population. The idea is that when a government is deeply discredited, any action it takes will be viewed with suspicion—if it does something good, it’s seen as opportunism; if it does something bad, it confirms what was already thought. It’s a kind of self-reinforcing cycle of discredit, making it nearly impossible to change negative perceptions. And history repeats itself—in Luanda as in Rome.
Second, there is the economic problem, which is profound and affects the entire population, with the likely exception of a small elite with access to the central circles of power.
Many were surprised by the recent speech by MPLA congressman Paulo de Carvalho, who criticized the government led by his own party. Indeed, anyone who attended the First National Conference on Good Governance, organized by the Inspector General of State Administration, João Pinto, which took place in Luanda last January, will have heard a speech by the same congressman that already demonstrated the precise malaise affecting Angolan society and eroding the MPLA’s popularity. At the time, Paulo de Carvalho, speaking as a full professor of Sociology and using his own case as an example, explained Angolan society’s discontent: in 2017, the average salary was approximately US$5,000, whereas now it is a mere US$1,000 (as I cite from memory, the figures are not exactly those).
With the complete easing of the kwanza’s exchange rate against the dollar (and other currencies), the elite population lost more than half of its purchasing power. This same phenomenon spread to the middle classes and affected everyone. This, combined with persistent inflation and unemployment, created a situation of widespread impoverishment, from university professors linked to the regime to the poor living in the slums.
According to a recent official report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), between 2021 and 2023, the food situation in Angola worsened significantly. The number of malnourished people increased from 6.8 to 8.3 million, reflecting a deterioration in the country’s nutritional conditions. Approximately 79.2% of the population—approximately 28 million Angolans—faced moderate food insecurity, while 11 million lived in severe food insecurity. In 2023, 1.3 million people were affected by high levels of acute food insecurity, requiring an urgent humanitarian response.
It should be emphasized that the hunger ravaging the poorest families in Angola has become a brutal and unacceptable reality. Reports abound of families forced to forage for food from the scraps discarded by the more fortunate, resorting to garbage as their only source of survival. This situation not only highlights the lack of effective public policies but also demands an urgent and forceful response from society and the state, a response that has not been forthcoming. It is essential to address this tragedy with the seriousness it deserves, breaking the silence and indifference in the face of suffering that daily shatters thousands of lives.
Even today, the reason for the abrupt easing of the kwanza’s exchange rate remains unclear. Not even in Javier Milei’s Argentina—the new hero (and thus far successful in controlling public debt and inflation) of neoliberalism—did the peso (Argentine currency) fully flexibilize immediately. Milei did not fully liberalize the Argentine peso immediately after assuming the presidency in 2023, although this was one of his central campaign promises. Instead, he adopted a series of initial measures to stabilize the economy, such as a controlled devaluation of the official exchange rate, a ban on the Central Bank issuing currency to finance the Treasury, the suspension of new public works projects, and the transformation of state-owned companies into public limited companies with a view to privatization. Milei opted for a gradual approach, prioritizing fiscal balance and stabilizing the foreign exchange market.
In Angola, everything was done without planning, without preparation, and without haste. Why?
In addition, the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), due to their restrictive effect, have increased poverty and have been unsuccessful: public spending remains irrational, inflation has slowed little or not at all, and, above all, the IMF’s main objective has failed: public finances remain extremely fragile.
In fact, public spending has followed an alarming trajectory of irrationality, with billion-dollar presidential contracts awarded without public tender or adequate oversight, compromising transparency and the sound management of state resources. This practice, coupled with the apparent resurgence (or persistence) of serious corruption in various spheres of power, has undermined public confidence and further exacerbated social inequalities.
Finally, the maintenance of the same economic team, led by Lima Massano and Vera Daves, with highly questionable results and generating growing popular dissatisfaction, reinforced the perception of stagnation and political favoritism, to the detriment of urgent structural reforms and a true renewal in the conduct of economic policy.
Unlike many, I believe that the MPLA’s current unpopularity is a direct result of this political incapacity for economic management and the accelerated impoverishment caused by the executive’s economic and financial choices.
It’s not so much a question of rights, freedoms, political openness, or democratic practice, but rather a massive economic failure—because, as an old adage goes, first one must live, and only then philosophize (“primum vivere, deinde philosophari”). Traditionally attributed to the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), and taken up by thinkers such as Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the central idea of this adage is that, before human beings can dedicate themselves to philosophical reflection or the search for the meaning of life, they need to ensure the basic conditions of existence, namely food, security, and survival in general.
For MPLA leaders, who were trained in the Marxist school and will have a deterministic view of history, it should be easy to understand the current situation in the country: the material conditions (infrastructure) do not correspond to the institutions (superstructure), which is why there are objective conditions for a revolution, through which the correlation between material conditions and power can be restored.
Thus, the task facing the MPLA over the next 100 weeks is extremely difficult, as economic well-being cannot be decreed, and the negative image absorbed by large sections of the population cannot be reversed in an instant, especially if some leaders—as reformist party sources confess—insist on remaining out of touch with reality: “They don’t want to listen or understand. There’s a blindness fueled by stubbornness and arrogance.”
Ultimately, in Angola, it’s not the opposition that’s preparing to win the elections—particularly because there are no signs of UNITA’s strategic proposals capable of overcoming the country’s difficulties and improving the well-being of Angolans. It’s the government itself that, by refusing to engage with the people’s realities, predicts its own deposition.
ANGOLA24
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