The president of UNITA, Adalberto da Costa Júnior, today defended reforms in Angola’s National Electoral Commission (CNE), “to put an end to institutional coups d’état”, considering that 2022 was marked by the closest electoral dispute “in which the winners gave in to avoid bloodbath.
Adalberto da Costa Júnior, president of UNITA, the largest opposition party that the MPLA still allows to exist, also said that this was a year of “successive battles, the return to political prisons of young activists and intimidation of all kinds”.
“Attempts to suppress the right to free expression of journalists, to vilify the rights of teachers and students for more dignified conditions and fairer salaries” also occurred, according to Adalberto da Costa Júnior, adding: “It was a year in which agriculture continued to be forgotten family and support for micro and small companies”.
The leader of UNITA, the party that elected 90 deputies in the August 24 elections and contested the definitive results, considered that 2022 was marked by the closest electoral dispute in which “the winners gave in to avoid an unnecessary bloodbath”.
The post-electoral “bloodbath” was “projected” and pre-announced with the exhibition of “a portentous parade and public exhibition of military forces ready to act, to, among other purposes, silence the democratic forces of society by dozens of other years”, stressed Adalberto da Costa Júnior.
The National Electoral Commission (MPLA branch) and the Constitutional Court (another MPLA branch) declared the MPLA (in power since 1975) the winner of the elections, where it elected 124 deputies for the next five years.
The UNITA president, who was speaking at the year-end greetings ceremony in Luanda, said that with commitment, dedication and courage, “despite the cheating”, the party managed to “format, for the first time in 45 years, a parliament that withdrew the qualified majority of the MPLA”.
“The regime was built on the culture of hegemony and the times point to the reform of mentalities and the I want everything, I can do everything, I command everything. For Angola, everything is possible by embracing the culture of dialogue and the unavoidable reform of the party state”, he stressed.
According to the leader of the “maninhos” party, because of an “inclusive vision, announced and explained” inside and outside the country, they obtained “in the name and in the interest of the democratic forces one of the most significant victories following the armed peace”.
According to Adalberto da Costa Júnior, UNITA and its partners in the United Patriotic Front (FPU) will not give up “demanding” that the President of the Republic be elected directly by the citizens and “not hitchhiking in parliamentary elections”.
“We will not abdicate for an electoral administration equidistant from competitors, more transparent and credible. The CNE must, in this legislative cycle, be the target of priority reform measures, in order to put an end to institutional coups d’état”, he pointed out.
“We will not give up formatting, with the interested social fringes, a broad effort to hold the municipal elections in 2023”, he argued.
The UNITA leader criticized, in his speech, the government proposal to increase the number of Angolan municipalities, which should go from 164 to 581, considering that it aims to “change the electoral circles to better blur the urban protest vote, with administrative designs in which it is the ruler who intends to redirect the vote”.
UNITA and its partners, he insisted, “will not abdicate from demanding an increase to two digits, achievable, of the General State Budget (OGE) for education and health and from demanding that the Angolan President be constitutionally limited in contracting debts without authorization of parliament and award contracts without transparent tenders”.
For the president of UNITA, the country moves to 2023 carrying in its luggage the “belief that alternation in Angola” is within reach, provided that “the combination of the broadest efforts of society, eager for change and tired of endemic corruption” is reconfigured , the theft of state assets and resources”.
“In 2023, we will have to have a better Angola for everyone. We have to say enough to the violations of individual freedoms and human rights, together, we will have to have created policies capable of reversing the escape route of cadres, especially the young people who are leaving Angola following the elections”, concluded Adalberto da Costa Júnior.
About all of this, also as a balance sheet and a challenge for 2023, we reproduce the article “Be worthy of the People. Don’t cheat once more!”, published on September 12, 2022 here in Folha 8:
“UNITA said today that it is considering taking office in the Angolan Parliament, considering that its final position will aim at safeguarding peace and consolidating democracy, while other opposition parties are divided. “Safeguarding peace and consolidating democracy”, while safeguarding their perks and forgetting the millions of “contractors” who will continue to have to go to the MPLA fields?
According to Marcial Dachala, spokesperson for UNITA, the largest opposition party that won (almost seems like a blessing from the winner, the MPLA) 90 seats in Parliament, in the general elections of August 24, the party evaluates all scenarios, not ruling out however, ownership.
“We are talking regarding all these issues, regarding the various possible scenarios and it is a dichotomy between taking (possession) or not. The discussion revolves around these two approaches and I think that only on Wednesday will we be able to come out with authority and say what we will do”, said Marcial Dachala today.
The spokesman, elected deputy for the new legislature, also guaranteed that the main opposition party (which the MPLA continues to allow to exist in its “democracy”) will take a definitive position taking into account its contribution “to peace and also for the consolidation of the Democratic State and of Law”.
Apparently, winning elections, being robbed, accepting that the thief is a “winner” is a contribution to the consolidation of a democratic rule of law… When Jonas Savimbi died, the People said: “Sekulu wafa, kalye wendi k’ondalatu! v’ukanoli o café k’imbo lyamale!”. That is, the Elder died, now you will go to pick coffee in northern lands as hirelings, or be slaves in the land that you helped to, supposedly, free.
Also the National Renovation Party (PRS) has not yet decided on the investiture of deputies. “It is not known yet, this will be the decision of the party. The party has not yet decided on this aspect (deputies’ tenure), the PRS is not happy either, because of what happened the PRS was not benefited by the results, but harmed”, said the party’s president, Benedito Daniel.
The FNLA also referred a decision on the tenure of deputies to the party structures.
“I don’t know. The FNLA has structures, there are certain things that depend only on the president who decides, you have to listen to the bodies and we will listen to the bodies, as soon as we receive the communication from the parliament”, highlighted the party president, Nimi to Simbi.
For his part, the representative of the debuting Humanist Party of Angola (PHA), led by Bela Malaquias, said that his party is only waiting for the inauguration day, guaranteeing that its two deputies will have a “great debut” and that they should represent voters properly.
“It will be a great debut, as you know we are a new party and we will do everything to ensure that our interventions are always in the sense of duly representing all the Angolan people”, assured Simba Lwalwa.
João Lourenço, re-elected President of Angola for the next five years, takes office on Thursday and then the elected deputies follow.
Since 2002 the Galo Negro has stopped flying. The MPLA’s mistletoe keeps it glued to the bissapas. Second-rate Angolans, other than their leaders, are picking up coffee at the behest of the new colonial masters. In 2022 the Rooster flew but, apparently voluntarily, now accepts to return to the “chicken coop” and continue to receive corn from its supposed owner, the MPLA.
With the arrival of Adalberto da Costa Júnior in the Presidency (without the mandatory authorization of the MPLA), UNITA solved the mistletoe problem. It was then calculated that the Rooster would actually fly. Big mistake. The MPLA let him fly for a while but had him on a string.
In general, the memory of Angolans, in this case, is short. As has been written here several times, we all knew that if it weren’t for the MPLA to clip Galo Negro’s wings, someone from UNITA itself would be in charge of doing so. And so it happened. This is regarding to happen, now with the excuse of having no wings, its contribution is decisive to “safeguard peace and consolidate democracy and the rule of law”.
Despite all the enormous shenanigans of the MPLA, the elections always end up defeating not only the strategy but also its execution on all fronts. And what does UNITA do? He continues to accept that his People (all those who gave him his stolen victory this year) continue to be enslaved.
The electoral, social and political hecatombs show that UNITA was not, as it continues not to be, prepared to be a government and just wants to secure a few pots and continue to be the first of the last. If that is not the case, Adalberto da Costa Júnior now has the supreme opportunity to show that the MPLA is not in charge of UNITA.
Apparently, the sacrificed Angolan people no longer see in UNITA the valid alternative that for decades was promised, among many others, by Jonas Savimbi, António Dembo, Paulo Lukamba Gato and Samuel Chiwale.
Was it to see UNITA eating and shutting up, being submissive, being strong with the weak and weak with the strong, that Jonas Savimbi fought and died? Do not. It was not. And it is a pity that his teachings, like his many mistakes, were of no use to those who, without knowing how, inherited the party and the limelight of the Angolan elite. It is a pity that those who have always had a full belly know nothing, nor do they want to know (as much as it seems), of those who fought in hunger, but who ate with the pride of having the Black Rooster on their chest.
Perhaps it is also a pity that all those who saw cassava as a delicacy from the gods are, as it seems, surrendered to the lobster from the elite places of Luanda.
I don’t think that Men like Adalberto da Costa Júnior, Paulo Lukamba Gato, Kamalata Numa and many, many, others, have thrown the towel of political struggle to the carpet. I also don’t think they accept betraying a people who believed in them and who gave UNITA what they had and what they didn’t have. However, the time is now. If you want to be worthy of the People, don’t betray them, don’t accept being luxury extras in a Parliament dominated by the MPLA which, moreover, robbed you of victory in the secretariat.
And it is these people who, with an empty stomach, without medical assistance, without homes, without schools, demand justice and see it ever further away. And it is these people who, as the Archbishop of Huambo, D. José de Queirós Alves, said, do not have strength but are right.”
Page 8 with Lusa