Angola?s ruling MPLA is heading for a landslide victory in the parliamentary election, a result which will give it the power to make sweeping changes to the oil-rich African nation?s institutions. UNITA, the former rebel group and largest opposition party, has conceded defeat and dropped its bid to contest what it had described as a flawed poll. The decision came after official results showed the MPLA with an insurmountable lead.

The party that has ruled Angola since independence from Portugal in 1975 has nearly 82 percent of the vote against just over 10 percent for UNITA. Those figures are based on 84 percent of the vote.

The realisation that Angola will emerge from the election without the turmoil that marked recent polls in Kenya and Zimbabwe comes as a relief to the world community as well as Angolans, who had watched the chaotic two-day poll nervously. The country?s last election in 1992 led to a resumption of a a 27-year civil war that killed half a million people. ?It is not so important who wins. What we want is peace,? said Ducho Mendes, a 49-year-old construction worker who fled to Luanda during the fighting in the 1980s. Mendes said he waited three hours to vote on Friday. Delays to opening polling stations and missing registration lists led to an unscheduled second day of voting.

While noting irregularities, international observers have expressed general satisfaction and hope that it will lead to the blossoming of a full democracy after a lengthy period of virtual one-party rule.