JOHANNESBURG: With nearly 50 per cent of the ballots counted, Angola’s ruling MPLA party seem headed for a massive victory of 80 per cent of the vote in the country’s first parliamentary elections in 16 years, reports said on Sunday.

According to the state electoral commission on Sunday, the MPLA party of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was ahead in 17 of 18 provinces. Should the results be confirmed, the MPLA would have more than the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution.

The official results are expected at the earliest by the middle of next week. The largest opposition party UNITA had so far received little more than 10 per cent of the vote. The rest went to smaller parties.

UNITA disputed the results due to problems during the two-day polling which began Friday. Independent observers such as those from the European Union spoke only of poor preparation that affected some parts of the capital Luanda.

Considered a MPLA stronghold, Luanda contains 20 per cent of the country’s electorate.