The Need for Ideological-Based Political Parties in Sub-Saharan Africa. Case Study the MPLA and UNITA of Angola
The political movements in Africa have gone through a significant transformation throughout decades. When the first movements started in the Sub-Saharan region in earlier decades of the 20th century, they would just act as cultural or social associations, since the colonial order would not allow...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for African Studies
2023-06-01
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| Series: | Ученые записки Института Африки Российской академии наук |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://africajournal.ru/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Zapiski-2-2023-6-68-81-Issau-Agostinho.pdf |
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| Summary: | The political movements in Africa have gone through a significant transformation
throughout decades. When the first movements started in the Sub-Saharan region in earlier decades of
the 20th century, they would just act as cultural or social associations, since the colonial order would
not allow national political movements to exist in African societies under their rule. But during the
1950-1960s those associations transformed into political movements and parties that ultimately fought
for independence and transitional governments, respectively. However, 60 years after the national
liberations, most African ruling parties, especially the historic ones, are very much keen to explore
identity differences from one another to hold onto power, despite the multiparty democratic regimes in
which they operate. The claim to belonging to a certain identity (which may be even religious or
linguistic) has degenerated into violence and civil wars in many post-independence African societies
(Central African Republic, Cameroon, Angola, Mozambique, Kenya, just to mention a few). The
assumption that identity-based political parties have not worked well for stronger, peaceful, and
integrated African societies (except for a few countries) should bring about a new format of political
parties that are ideological-based and which, despite all cultural differences, can indeed offer a better
social-political confrontation among different political parties based on a whole set of ideological
values. So, although a post-or-quasi-ideology permeates most historical political parties across Sub-
Saharan Africa, this paper focuses primarily on the MPLA and UNITA post-war political ideologies
as it looks at ideological patterns and verifies through their Statutes the existence of a quasi or fullscale political ideology, and how both parties relate and operate within the framework of political
discourse in today’s Angola. |
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| ISSN: | 2412-5717 3034-3496 |