The ruling party remains favourite, though the margin is narrow enough for a surprise UNITA victory, which could shift relations with global superpowers – with possibly less friendly ties with Russia.

Since independence from Portugal in 1975, Angola has been run by the formerly Marxist People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), led since 2017 by President Joao Lourenco.

But an Afrobarometer survey in May showed the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola’s (UNITA) opposition coalition, led by Adalberto Costa Junior, increasing its share to 22%, from 13% in 2019.

That’s still seven points behind the MPLA, but nearly half of voters were undecided. Many youths – under 25s make up 60% of the country – are voting for the first time.

“I hope this election brings a bit of change because the country is not good as it is,” Goncalo Junior Maneco, a 25-year-old electrician, said as he waited to vote at a polling station in the Lusiada University in the capital Luanda.

President Lourenco, who is seeking re-election, voted at the same polling station surrounded by heavy security.

“We have just exercised our right to vote. It’s fast and simple. We advise all eligible citizens to do the same. In the end, we will all win, democracy wins and Angola wins,” Lourenco told reporters.

In a tense run-up to the vote for both president and parliament, UNITA urged voters to stay near polling stations after voting to reduce the risk of fraud.

Opposition leader Costa Junior was forced to vote at a polling station different from the one where he was supposed to, because of problems with registration.

“The process is proceeding in an orderly and peaceful manner. The general atmosphere is calm and there are no records of any disturbances that could jeopardise the process,” a spokesperson for the National Electoral Commission told reporters on Wednesday morning.

Tweaked vote-counting rules may delay official results by days, analysts say, raising tensions which some fear may boil over into violence.

“I hope it (the election) takes place in a peaceful and tranquil environment,” said Adriano Francisco, 49, as he queued to vote.

RUSSIA TIES

Fearing fraud, which marred past elections, an activist monitoring group, Mudei Movement, is planning to take pictures of results sheets at as many polling stations as possible, coordinator Luaty Beirao told Reuters on Tuesday.

“The (movement) would have no reason to exist if the process was transparent and there was no reason to doubt the institutions that organise it,” he said.

A UNITA victory could weaken decades of close ties with Moscow, for whom the MPLA was a cold war proxy during Angola’s 27-year civil war ending in 2002, while UNITA was U.S.-backed.

UNITA condemned “the invasion of Ukraine by Russia”, Costa Junior said on Twitter. He also travelled to Brussels and Washington to build ties with Western partners before elections.

Russia’s ambassador to Angola, Vladimir Tararov, was quoted in Angolan press in March as praising the country for its neutrality while lambasting UNITA for wanting to show it “stands with the West, the so-called civilised countries”.

Lourenco has also opened up to the West since his election in 2017, but in March Angola abstained from supporting a United Nations resolution which condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“It is highly possible that a UNITA win would mean a distancing of Angola from Russia,” Charles Ray, head of the Africa Programme at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told Reuters, but only if it can consolidate power over a pro-Russian military first.

Lourenco has tried to improve relations with Washington, and just before the elections applied to join a trade agreement with the European Union and southern African states, which has been in force since 2016. Talks start in months.

By Catarina Demony and Miguel Gomes

(Reporting by Catarina Demony and Miguel Gomes in Luanda; additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Johannesburg; Writing by Francesco Guarascio, editing by Tim Cocks, Nick Macfie and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)