Under the agreement run-off elections were supposed to take place, but were cancelled by the MPLA after hostilities flared up again.  Though the elections were judged by UN authorities to be fair, UNITA alleged that they were fraudulent, and soon embarked on a renewed military campaign against MPLA.  Fighting would continue off-and-on until Savimbi's death in 2002.  Without its charismatic leader, UNITA could not maintain its cohesion and disbanded, bringing over forty years of conflict to an end. From the mid-fifteenth century expeditions along the West African coast, to the independence of its colonies in 1975, the Portuguese were in some ways both the first and last European colonizers of Africa, maintaining a presence on the continent longer than any other European power.