By Paul Simao
LUANDA (Reuters) - Angola's ruling MPLA headed on Sundayfor a landslide victory in parliamentary elections whichopposition parties have branded illegitimate, preliminaryresults showed.
The MPLA, which has ruled the oil-rich African nation sinceindependence from Portugal in 1975, received more than 81percent of the vote at the national level, the electoralcommission announced late on Saturday.
UNITA, the African nation's largest opposition party, waswinning just over 10 percent. The results were based on 35percent of the votes cast in the two-day poll.
The MPLA was also seen crushing the opposition at theprovincial level.
Angola's parliamentary election uses a variation ofproportional representation, with seats allocated based onresults from the national and provincial levels.
"We want to stress that these are provisional results,"Adao de Almeida, a commission spokesman, told a news conferencein the capital Luanda. He said the next round of results wouldbe released on Sunday morning.
Voting began on Friday but was extended into Saturdaybecause of delays and confusion at polling stations in Luandaprovince, home to 21 percent of Angola's 8.3 million registeredvoters
UNITA has vowed to challenge the legality of the poll inthe Constitutional Court. A disputed poll could shatter thefragile political stability that has existed since the end of a27-year civil war in 2002.
"We have no choice but to file the challenge. Conditionsdid not exist for the election in Luanda (province) yesterdayand they still do not exist today," UNITA spokesman Adalbertoda Costa told Reuters.
UNITA and other opposition parties say the vote should beheld again.
The government has denied any electoral wrongdoing, whileadmitting that there had been administrative glitches in someareas, particularly around Luanda. MPLA spokesman Norberto dosSantos said UNITA's legal battle was without merit.
Officials have 15 days to announce the full results of anelection which has been keenly watched because of Angola'semergence as a major oil producer and the newest member ofOPEC.
CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE?
The MPLA had been widely expected to win the election, butthe partial results suggested the party was within reach of thecoveted two-thirds majority that would allow it to makesweeping changes to the country's constitution.
The MPLA held 129 of the 220 seats in parliament headinginto the election, with the remainder controlled by UNITA and ahandful of smaller parties.
Problems with voter registration lists have been cited asthe main cause of the delays on Friday.
"The law was broken because the electoral registration wasnot distributed," Luisa Morgantini, who is leading a 120-memberEU team, told Reuters. "We cannot say the process was doneaccording to the rules."
Morgantini, after meeting Angolan election officials, latersaid she was pleased with their efforts and impressed by theway in which Angolans had cast their votes.
An observer mission from the Southern African DevelopmentCommunity, a 15-nation group that includes Angola, said onSaturday the election was credible, free and transparent,according to Angola's state-run Angop news agency.
But UNITA leader Isaias Samakuva has described the poll asa "mess" and showed no signs of toning down his criticism.
Tensions between UNITA (National Union for the TotalIndependence of Angola) and the MPLA (Popular Movement for theLiberation of Angola) have simmered since the former rebelgroup ended its war against the state six years ago.
In the run-up to the poll, UNITA accused the MPLA of usingstate funds for its campaign and the state-run media topublicise its cause. It also said its supporters had beenharassed, a charge backed by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
Independent Angolan election observers said on Saturdaythat the voting was largely free of violence andirregularities, but that it was too early to declare the polllegitimate.
Angola's government has touted the poll as a showcase forits recovery from the civil war and hopes that it will spurfurther foreign investment. Angola rivals Nigeria assub-Saharan Africa's biggest oil producer.
(Editing by Charles Dick)
