The Angolan government has set up a service that will prepare the southwest African country for its first general elections since the end of a 27-year civil war, a government official told the Jornal de Angola daily newspaper Friday.

Territorial Administration Minister Faustino Muteka said the service had been set up to put in place "technical and logistical requirements necessary for conducting a census of electors."
"With the war ended, the ministry must get organised and lead moves linked to the elections. Among these is a census of voters," he said.

The Angolan government has proposed holding general elections in early 2004, but President Jose Eduardo dos Santos recently said he had begun consulting with political groups and civil society, with a view to arriving consensually at a date for the vote.

Angola last held general elections in September 1992. A truce was declared for those elections, the first since Angola gained independence from Portugal in 1975, after which the country was immediately plunged into civil war.

Dos Santos and his Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party won the 1992 vote but the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rebel movement, which launched the civil war, contested the results and relaunched hostilities.

Angola's war officially ended in April last year, six weeks after UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was killed in combat - Sapa-AFP.