20120826
AFP
Angola's main opposition UNITA party on Saturday rallied thousands of its supporters to demand democratic elections on August 31, only the second peacetime vote in the oil-rich country.

"We call on the National Electoral Commission to respect the law," Isaias Samakuva, president of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) told the group gathered at a square in the capital Luanda.

Samakuva said he would back the postponement of the vote by a few weeks if it would give the electoral commission time to organise a transparent election.

UNITA has since the start of the year piled pressure on the electoral commission to fix voting irregularities.

He warned that the party would organise a march to the electoral commission's offices if it failed to do so.

In particular the party faults the system used to transmit and monitor election results.

UNITA has in recent months organised similar rallies in Angola's main cities, originally to press a demand for elections chief Suzana Ingles to step down, arguing that she did not meet the legal requirements to hold the job and was thought to be a close ally of the ruling MPLA.

Samakuva also urged the European Union, which he said sends observers everywhere else but Angola, to focus this time on the people of Angola and not just its oil.

The upcoming polls will be the oil-rich nation's third since independence from Portugal in 1975. During the previous elections in 2008 the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) won over 80 percent of the vote against 10 percent for UNITA.

The MPLA under President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, in power for the past 33 years, is the runaway favourite in the upcoming polls.