Angolan legislative election, 1980

Parliamentary elections were held in Angola in 1980. Beginning on 23 August, voters elected electoral colleges, which in turn, elected 229 candidates to the National Assembly. The elections were the first democratic elections conducted in the nation after in got independence from Portugal in 1975. During the period of 1975 to 1980, a civil war was fought between three parties, namely, People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).

The Unicameral Parliament of Angola was scheduled to be constituted with the 229 elected members for a period of three years after the elections. All Angolan citizens with 18 years of age were eligible to cast their vote. The representatives of the provincial assemblies formed a college and they elected the representatives of the House of Parliament.

Elections were held on 23 August 1980 for electoral colleges for choosing the electorates of the legislature. At the time, the country was a one-party state, with the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola - Party of Labour (MPLA-PT) as the sole legal party. As a result, most candidates were members of the party, and those that were not were vetted to ensure that they were not elected to the colleges. The elected assemblies took oath on 11 November 1980 and José Eduardo dos Santos took oath as the first elected President of Angola during September 1980. The council of ministers were reorganized in March 1981.

Angola was a colony of Portugal for more than 400 years from the 15th century. The demand for independence in Angola picked up momentum during the early 1950s. The Portuguese régime, refused to accede to the demands for independence, provoking an armed conflict that started in 1961 when freedom fighters attacked both white and black civilians in cross-border operations in northeastern Angola, which was called the Colonial War. The principal protagonists included the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), founded in 1956, the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), which appeared in 1961, and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), founded in 1966. After many years of conflict that weakened all of the insurgent parties, Angola gained its independence on 11 November 1975, after the 1974 coup d'état in Lisbon, Portugal, which overthrew the Portuguese régime headed by Marcelo Caetano.

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