Angolan President Joao Lourenço was sworn in on Thursday, September 15, 2022, for a second term as head of the country. His party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in power since the country’s independence in 1975, won a very tight ballot which took place on August 24, 2022 with 51.17% of the vote. ahead of the first opposition party, the National Union for Independence (Unita), which won 43.95%, according to the results of the electoral commission. In this Central African state, there is no presidential election, the head of the list of the winning party in the legislative elections is automatically elected.
Unita, which had lodged an appeal to challenge these results, was dismissed by the Constitutional Court. During his swearing in at Republic Square in Luanda (the capital), the 68-year-old promised salary increases as well as better pay for the armed forces. He also promised to fight once morest youth unemployment, a juvenile segment of which a part voted for the opposition during the last electoral game. The other highlight of this election is the election for the first time of a woman, in this case Esperança Costa, biologist and university professor (61 years old), as vice-president.
Many Heads of State and Government took part in Joao Lourenço’s investiture ceremony, including the Head of Government, Aziz Akhannouch, who represented King Mohammed VI there. He transmitted to the newly elected a message from the King in which he addressed “his warm congratulations and his sincere wishes for success to President Lourenço in his high office”.
The Sovereign also expressed “his consideration of the ties of African friendship and brotherhood uniting the two countries, reiterating his constant determination to work together with the Angolan President to strengthen bilateral relations on the basis of mutual respect and fruitful cooperation, serving the interests of the two brotherly peoples”.
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