Angola’s elections and the politics of presidential succession
本文分析安哥拉2002年内战结束后，执政党MPLA利用石油收入、中国战略联盟和战后霸权，推行国家重建和外交政策，但财富分配不均、资源集中于总统亲信，导致多数民众被排斥，经济多元化失败。
Shortly after the government’s2002 victory against UNITA rebels in the country’s long civil war, Angola became the fastest growing economy in the world. Oil production shot up from one million to just under two million barrels a day between 2002 and 2008, with the price of oil jumping from around $20 to $147 in the same period. GDP increased tenfold between 2002 and 2013, making Angola sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest economy at $121 billion. Armed with unprecedented oil revenues that paid for infrastructure expenditure and the hiring of hundreds of thousands of expatriates, a strategic alliance with China, and hegemonic control of post-war Angola, the ruling MPLA proceeded to enact a self-styled national reconstruction agenda and assertive foreign policy. Although the capital-intensive policies adopted by the government were presented in developmental terms, Angolan society remains marked by significant exclusions and skewed patterns of wealth distribution. Resources were concentrated on a so-called ‘national bourgeoisie’ of mostly urban party loyalists, to the detriment of the majority of Angolans.1 Those close to the presidency, including President dos Santos’s family, disproportionately benefited from access to business opportunities. Rhetorical commitments towards economic diversification often resulted in unviable or fraudulent agri-business and industrial projects, while dependence on oil revenues remained the defining trait of the Angolan economy. While the period since 2002 saw some improvements, the overall results of Angola’s ‘mini-golden age’ were disappointing.2