Cases of corruption, demonization of the opposition leader, and disunity in the ruling party weaken the expectations of democratization that some placed in President João Lourenço
“Is the MPLA prepared to have Adalberto da Costa Júnior as President of Angola?” The question, fired at point-blank range by the ambassador of a European Union (EU) country in a recent hearing, took Paulo Pombolo, secretary-general of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, who has governed the country since independence, by surprise. He also left his leadership on alert.
The message bluntly signals the feeling of saturation that seems to have taken hold of the West in the face of a long cycle of governance that continues to hold Angola hostage to corruption, as attested by the scandal of embezzlement of more than ten million dollars (8, 2 million and euros), led by high ranks of one of the nerve centers of its own power: the Military House of the President.
“The West is fed up with us,” a top MPLA leader confessed to Expresso. This feeling and the lack of investment, even after Lourenço made an unprecedented opening, seem to appear associated with bad governance, the heavy bureaucracy of very fragile institutions, and the repeated practices of corruption, which tend to alienate investors.
Luanda winked at Madrid for new support on the eve of elections and the Spanish prime minister was recently in Luanda, but Pedro Sánchez preferred to consult Lisbon before making a decision. “There is a great deal of wear and tear on Angolan governance and, with Portugal as its gateway to Europe and as knowledgeable as anyone in its reality, the Spaniards prefer to play it safe,” explains an EU source.
The South African Neighbor
Whoever is ready to take advantage of this wear and tear is the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Taking advantage of the growing internal popularity of its leader, Costa Júnior, and the distance between Luanda and Pretoria, the largest party in the position seems to be prepared to articulate a solid alliance with South Africa in the event of an electoral victory.
“Not dying of love for South Africans, because of their approach to Savimbi in the past, those in the future can move forward with a package of financial and business support to help a new Government that opens the doors of the Angolan market to them like never before. ”, A South African source told Expresso.
Deviation from Millions
Another growing scandal in the West regarding Angolan governance is another embezzlement scandal, which, having ramifications in Portugal and Namibia, reaches the Presidency of the Republic again and involves the participation of high-level officials from a commercial bank. The chaos, more or less predictable, is a blow to the stomach of the regime’s weak credibility and calls into question Lourenço’s political and moral leadership in fighting corruption.
“The former President [José Eduardo dos Santos] took 30 years to start making him a ‘cat shoe’, but this President, in less than four years, is already captured by some of his main collaborators in actions that can ruin his campaign election, ” a prominent member of the MPLA parliamentary bench told Expresso.
The scheme – assembled using the famous “blue bag” of the Presidency, which allowed some of its senior officials to raise large sums in national currency and foreign exchange from the safe of the National Bank of Angola (BNA, central bank of the country) – goes back to the time of the governance of Eduardo dos Santos and takes more than 20 years.
Lourenço exonerated the entire team of generals and majors from the Presidential Security House and ordered criminal proceedings to be carried out against suspects of crimes of embezzlement, money retention, and criminal association, but a source from the Criminal Investigation Services told Expresso that there is “strong evidence that the top head of the institution knew about the scheme and will have continued it ”. The jurist Filipe Ambrósio considers, therefore, that “General Pedro Sebastião, as the political officer of the area, no longer has the conditions to continue in his position and, if he does not present his resignation, he should be immediately dismissed by the President”.
If corruption deprives Lourenço of sleep, the death of thousands of people, victims of the outbreak of malaria and diarrheal diseases, aggravated by the rampant spiral of unemployment and impoverishment of the population, sparks despair among those who pinned hopes on his governance. After four years and in the opposite direction, Angolans are multiplying and their expectations of a change in the governmental paradigm are vanishing.
Democracy with silenced opposition?
Compounding this rift, the strategy of demonizing the leader of UNITA, based on the mercantilist recruitment of “mouths of hire” attributed to radical circles of the MPLA, begins to create a climate of discomfort within the middle class and intellectual means of this party. “Political and strategic discernment is lacking and, when a party the size of the MPLA uses lumpenocrats to attack an opponent, it is the end of the string”, underlines university professor Filomeno Dias.
Therefore, the MPLA’s airier circles disagree, therefore, with low boots to challenge the image of Adalberto da Costa Júnior. The way in which the figure of Eduardo dos Santos has been associated with an alleged sponsorship of the leader of the largest opposition party deserves the repulsion of UNITA itself.
The doctor Maurílio Luiele, deputy of this party, accuses Lourenço of being an accomplice of “serious moral offense” to the former President, who is “going beyond all limits of ethics”. For political consultant Walter Ferreira, “the MPLA, if it wants to protect its representativeness to ensure re-election, has to stop at a service station and retread the tires to adjust its dynamics to the challenges ahead”.
When passing the ball to the Constitutional Court to assess the legitimacy of Costa Júnior’s candidacy, the MPLA leans the rope around Judge Manuel Aragão’s neck, the same that made the process leading to the election of that politician as leader of UNITA as transparent and legal. The journalist Reginaldo Silva could not say what was not said, “Judge Aragão is now the tower of the Lourenço board”.
The campaign that some MPLA circles are waging against Costa Júnior is working as a stimulus to strengthen UNITA’s cohesion and internal unity while accentuating the divorce with civil society figures and capitalizing sympathies in political circles unhappy with the MPLA’s governance.
