By Paul Simao
LUANDA (Reuters) - The leader of Angola's largestopposition party said on Sunday he was contesting the resultsof the country's parliamentary election, which showed theruling party headed for a landslide victory.
The dispute over the poll, the first to be held in 16years, threatens to shatter the fragile political stabilitythat has existed since the end of Angola's civil war in 2002and could dent the oil-rich nation's standing among foreigninvestors.
The international community has been watching the voteclosely after tarnished elections in Zimbabwe and Kenya, hopingthat the former Portuguese colony would defy its own historyand emerge from the election with political consensus.
UNITA leader Isaias Samakuva, however, said the two-dayvote had been badly flawed, with polling stations opening lateor not at all and officials failing to properly confirm theidentify of voters on registration lists. He vowed to contestthe results.
"The facts suggest that the final results of this electionmight not rigorously reflect the wishes expressed in the ballotbox by the Angolan people," Samakuva told a news conference athis party's office in the capital Luanda.
When asked if he was challenging the validity of the poll,Samakuva said: "That's right." UNITA (National Union for theTotal Independence of Angola) has demanded a re-vote and vowedto take its battle to the Constitutional Court.
International monitors appear split over whether to givethe Angolan election a quick and clean bill of health.
Observers from the Southern African Development Community,a 15-nation regional body that includes Angola, have said thepoll was credible, transparent and free. But a European Unionmission has raised concerns about irregularities.
The EU team is expected to deliver its report on Monday.
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 voters.
The government has denied any electoral wrongdoing, whileadmitting there had been administrative glitches in some areas.
MPLA SURGE
Preliminary results, based on slightly more than two-thirdsof the vote, show the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberationof Angola) with about 82 percent of the national vote versus10.5 percent for UNITA and leading in all 18 provinces.
Officials have 15 days to release the final results, but itis expected that they will be announced this week.
The numbers, if they hold, represent a stunning collapse insupport for the opposition and an overwhelming mandate for theruling party, in power since independence from Portugal in1975.
The MPLA won 54 percent to UNITA's 34 percent in the lastparliamentary election in 1992. The poll was overshadowed by aparallel presidential race that ended when UNITA leader JonasSavimbi withdrew from a second round after accusing PresidentJose Eduardo dos Santos of cheating his way to victory.
Savimbi resumed his guerrilla war against Dos Santos'government, and the conflict dragged on for a decade beforeconcluding in 2002 after the UNITA chief was killed in anambush. Half a million people died in the war.
Government-run media lashed out at Samakuva and his party,saying their complaints amounted to sour grapes.
"UNITA is trying to explain away its collapse at thepolls," Juliao Dino Matrosse, the secretary general of theMPLA, told the state-controlled Angop news agency.
But others said it was important the former rebel group'scomplaints be investigated.
"All the citizens have to respect the right of UNITA tochallenge the results based on possible problems with the vote.That is fundamental," said Fernando Macedo, a law professor atLuanda's Lusiada University.
Luanda touted the ballot as a showcase for its recoveryfrom the war and hopes it will spur foreign investment for itsbooming economy. Angola rivals Nigeria as sub-Saharan Africa'sbiggest oil producer.
Investors and oil firms are generally comfortable with thecurrent government, which abandoned Marxism in the early 1990sand embraced foreign investment. Angola's economy grew by morethan 24 percent in 2007.
But the prospect the MPLA could win two-thirds of the220-seat parliament, giving it the power to change theconstitution, could raise concerns in markets and Westerncapitals. It held 129 seats going into the election.
(Editing by Charles Dick)
