Angola 1992
On August 25, 1992, the Angolan People’s National Assembly ratified an interim constitution, which long remained in force.
The constitution was part of an effort to end a protracted civil war. The initial decision to redraft the constitution came out of the 1990-1991 peace talks between the Angolan government (the MPLA, Angolan Popular Liberation Movement) and UNITA (a political-military movement with which the government had been fighting since independence in 1976). The United States, the Soviet Union, and Portugal acted as mediators and counselors to the warring parties. These discussions included agreement to hold national elections 15-18 months after the ceasefire, and thus produced an implicit timeline for constitutional revision. They also created a consultative role for UNITA in the development of the interim constitution.
During these talks, UNITA representatives worked with the Angolan government to draft the amendment texts, which the MPLA had first entertained and approved at a December 1990 party congress. The country's single-party legislature ratified these amendments in a series of votes taken during 1991. The party congress’s 694 delegates also established a rough two-stage timetable to govern the rest of the transition process.
In January 1992, following the timetable, the MPLA government convened a Multi-Party Conference with the 25 newly-recognized smaller political parties, at which the parties discussed the proposed electoral law and draft language for a new constitution. UNITA argued that its status as a signatory to the peace agreements gave it special status in the consultations; it boycotted the Multi-Party Conference (though it sent an unofficial observer), and the MPLA conceded by holding direct bilateral talks with UNITA on the same material. This final set of amendments, which included the laws for the 1992 legislative and executive elections and provisions for drafting a permanent constitution, was ratified on August 25, 1992, by a unanimous vote of 215-0 in the People’s National Assembly.
As the elections neared and UNITA’s campaign turned increasingly to negative advertising and ethnic attacks, tension at political rallies increased. When the UN-monitored presidential election results came back in favor of José Eduardo dos Santos (the MPLA’s candidate), Jonas Savimbi (the leader of UNITA) immediately declared election fraud. UN, American, and Portuguese efforts to resolve the situation failed, and the civil war resumed without the adoption of a permanent constitution.