By Paul Simao
LUANDA (Reuters) - Angola's ruling MPLA headed on Sundayfor a landslide victory in a parliamentary election whichopposition parties have branded illegitimate, preliminaryresults showed.
The MPLA, which has ruled the oil-rich African nation sinceindependence from Portugal in 1975, has taken almost 82 percentof the vote at the national level, the electoral commissionannounced.
The African country's main opposition party UNITA, a formerrebel group, was far behind.
The ruling party was also seen crushing the opposition atthe provincial level on the basis of about 50 percent of thevotes after the two-day poll.
Angola's government has touted the ballot as a showcase forits recovery from civil war after flawed polls elsewhere inAfrica and hopes that it will spur foreign investment. Angolarivals Nigeria as sub-Saharan Africa's biggest oil producer.
Although nobody is predicting a return to fighting, adisputed poll could shake the fragile political stability thathas existed since the end of the 27-year war in 2002.
The electoral commission has stressed that results releasedso far are provisional.
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.
"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.
GLITCHES
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.
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.
Angola's parliamentary election uses a variation ofproportional representation, with seats allocated based onresults from the national and provincial levels.
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 later said she was pleased with their effortsand impressed by the way in which Angolans had cast theirvotes.
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.
In the run-up to the poll, UNITA (National Union for theTotal Independence of Angola) accused the MPLA (PopularMovement for the Liberation of Angola) of abusing state fundsand state media. It also said its supporters had been harassed.
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.
(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
