Angola enacts pre-poll reforms

LISBON (Reuter) - Angola has approved constitutional changes that abolish the death penalty, safeguard senior posts in its new army and remove more remnants of the state's former Marxist creed, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported from the capital, Luanda, yesterday. It said Angola's one-party parliament had rushed through the changes ahead of the country's first-ever free elections next month.

The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, which has ruled since independence from Portugal in 1975, renamed the state 'Republic of Angola' instead of 'People's Republic of Angola'. Several official institutions, including parliament and the armed forces, will drop the word 'Popular' from their title.