Elections in Angola should take place in 2008 and 2009, an advisory board said Thursday, saying preparations are too far behind for a vote this year, its original recommendation, AP reported. In 2004, the same advisory body, the Council of the Republic, recommended elections be held in 2006. It now says registration can't be completed before June 2007. «The Council of the Republic has unanimously decided that legislative elections take place between May and August 2008 and that the presidential ballot happens during the same period in 2009,» attorney-general and council spokesman Augusto Carneiro said. The forthcoming elections are to be the first since 1992. Opposition parties criticized the call to push them back. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled since 1979, said he expected the first phase of voter registration, which started Nov. 15, to be completed in July 2007, but wasn't sure that would happen. «It's hard to predict if by then we will have all conditions for the ballots to take place,» he said. The National Electoral Commission had said earlier that it expected registration of about 7.5 million eligible voters from an estimated population of 13.5 million to be completed by June 15, 2007.
