IN MUDDLE-SPEAK, DOS SANTOS OPTS PUBLICLY FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L LUANDA 000524 E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/25/2019 TAGS: AO PGOV PREL SUBJECT: IN MUDDLE-SPEAK, DOS SANTOS OPTS PUBLICLY FOR INDIRECT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS REF: LUANDA 523 Classified By: Ambassador Dan Mozena for reason 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) During an August 20, 2009 press conference with visiting South African President Jacob Zuma (Ref A),Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos declared that "we advocate an (presidential) election by universal direct suffrage in which the president is the head of a list, with the support of his party, in which the election can then be formalized by the National Assembly. But this is not a typical indirect election." Quoted verbatim, the President's statement featured prominently in August 21 reports by the state media, but by the next day, the issue had dropped off the scope of the government media. According to one well placed Embassy contact, state media received an instruction from the Presidency to drop the issue. ¶2. (C) Even before the President's declaration, opposition leaders have been pressing for early presidential elections. During an August 19 meeting with StaffDel Peter Quaranto, UNITA President Isaias Samakuva stressed his party's position that direct presidential elections must be held soonest, as required by the Constitution. When queried as to whether delayed elections might be better for the opposition as voters increasingly lose faith in the government's ability to deliver, Samakuva underscored that his party's position was simply that the Constitution should be followed and that direct presidential elections should be held accordingly. ¶3. (C) During his August 10 meeting with visiting Secretary Clinton, Dos Santos said his "personal preference" was for indirect presidential elections as in South Africa. He said he did not know whether his views would prevail in the ongoing constitution-drafting exercise. ¶4. (C) Comment: Dos Santos's public reference to the president's name heading a party list suggests that he proposes to combine presidential and legislative elections, with the other names on the "list" being those of party candidates for parliament. Under this scenario, voters would be "directly" electing the party, whose leader would become the president of the country if the party won the elections and whose candidates as designated on the "list" would become members of parliament to the extent of their voter support. This approach would preclude independent candidates from running for the office. To the extent that this interpretation reflects the President's actual thinking on the matter, the President's concept of "direct" presidential elections is quite different from how that approach has routinely been defined by both ruling and opposition party players. If the President is proposing combining presidential and parliamentary elections, he may possibly be considering postponing presidential elections until 2012, when the next legislative elections are scheduled. MOZENA