In February Angola's main opposition party, União Nacional para a Indepêndencia Total de Angola (UNITA), revealed that it was unlikely to hold a party congress until after the next legislative elections, scheduled to take place in 2012. Under UNITA's party rules a congress is supposed to be held every four years, and the next one had been due in July. However, after a meeting in January of the party's most powerful body, Comité Permanente da Comissão Política (CPCP), it was decided to postpone the congress indefinitely. The CPCP complained of a lack of funds for holding the congress-an estimated US$4m-and blamed the government for giving meagre funding to political parties. However, UNITA is partly responsible for its financial predicament given its poor showing in the September 2008 legislative elections, when it saw its share of parliamentary seats reduced from 70 to just 16, in the face of a landslide by the ruling party, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA). This has reduced the financial support that it receives from the government, while many senior UNITA figures have also lost their ministerial salaries and privileges.

Many hold the UNITA leader, Isaias Samakuva, responsible for the party's waning fortunes, and Mr Samakuva had indicated that he would stand down in 2011. However, some have interpreted the delay in holding the congress as an attempt by Mr Samakuva's supporters to shut out potential rivals from a leadership challenge. The most vocal remains Abel Chivukuvuku, a long-standing party stalwart and former head of a UNITA breakaway faction, who lost the party leadership to Mr Samakuva in July 2007 (September 2007, The political scene). Under Angolan electoral law the head of each party contesting the legislative elections is automatically the party's candidate in the presidential race, with the leader of the winning party taking the position of national president and head of state. Thus, if UNITA does not hold a congress, or call a leadership vote, its presidential candidate will remain Mr Samakuva. The delay in holding the congress has provoked anger from several sections of the party, as well as from potential contenders for the leadership, among them Domingos Malukas and Adalberto Costa Júnior. However, in the absence of fresh financial support there is little likelihood of a congress taking place in the near future.