The Angolan politician is preparing new protests in January for the legalization of PRA-JA Servir Angola. “After Malanje, I will go to Benguela, Cabinda, Lunda Sul, and Zaire,” he told those who participated in the demonstration in Luanda this Saturday.
Angolan politician Abel Chivukuvuku announced this Saturday that he will continue to fight to legalize PRA-JA Servir Angola, his political project, whose legalization process was made unfeasible by the Constitutional Court, which triggered protests.
The declaration was made at the end of a demonstration held in Luanda, which gathered close to 600 people, who walked about eight kilometers, from the Santa Ana Cemetery to Malanga, in the center of the city, holding posters that said: “Legalization it’s PRA-JA ”; “We are 32,061 subscribers and our rights are being violated”; “We demand the legalization of PRA-JA”; “The Court belongs to the people, not to João Lourenço”.
At issue is the decision of the Constitutional Court, which definitively rejected the legalization of PRA-JA Servir Angola, after successive leads, since 2019, when the process was initiated.
According to Abel Chivukuvuku, coordinator of the PRA-JA Servir Angola Installing Committee, they will continue to litigate with the courts, because they refuse to accept that the political project is not legalized.
“PRA-JÁ exists and will continue to exist and will compete with other opponents in 2022 [election year]. Next week, our law firm will bring new documentation to the court, based on Law 2/15 (Law that establishes the general principles and rules for the organization and functioning of the Courts of Common Jurisdiction), in order to defeat the Constitutional Court. ”, Abel Chivukuvuku told the protesters.
Speaking to Lusa, lawyer William Tonet said that due to the challenge launched by Chivukuvuku, the possibility and feasibility of bringing appeals will now be analyzed, in order to ask for clarification of any gray areas existing in the court’s decision.
“This was the first march because we will continue, we will let the parties pass with serenity, but in January we will resume the program seven / seven,” he said. The seven / seven is the program of weekly visits of verification to the municipalities of the province of Luanda, implemented when Chivukuvuku was the leader of the Wide Convergence of Salvation of Angola – Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE), Angola’s second-largest political force.
Abel Chivukuvuku said that the demonstrators’ adherence is proof that the rejected and “hidden” signatures in the Constitutional Court “will be on the street every day”. “We are going to do it carefully because of the pandemic, but we will demonstrate that the signatures are in the neighborhoods and are with us,” he said, thanking the support of those who came from the provinces to participate in the protest, the young activists and some political forces, namely the Democratic Bloc.
The politician promised new marches in January in the provinces, one of them in the province of Malanje to be led by him.
“After Malanje, I will go to Benguela, Cabinda, Lunda Sul and Zaire. It is to show the court that the signatures are on the street, they are with us. At the same time that we are going to resume 7/7 and walk with the people, we are also going to prepare for 2022 ”, he stressed.
The coordinator of the Installing Committee, who reaffirmed his participation in the country’s political life, said that in 2022, in the next general elections, “the people have to checkmate the MPLA [Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, party in power since 1975 ] ”.
“We proved that, after all, the people, when they protest in opposition to the country’s entities, do so in an orderly and peaceful manner, nobody touched anyone, nobody vandalized anything and here we are all together,” said Chivukuvuku, praising the demonstrators’ extensive behavior the role of the police, who guaranteed security throughout the march.
“I also want to say a word of thanks to the police, they behaved like citizens and must be like that, protectors of the people and not violators of the people’s rights”, he stressed.
To the President of the Republic of Angola, João Lourenço, to whom Abel Chivukuvuku attributes responsibility for influencing the court’s decision, said that he “will have to learn” that the people are sovereign and not him.
The Angolan Constitutional Court rejected, at the beginning of this month, the legalization of PRA-JA Servir Angola, “for not making up for insufficiencies” and presenting “ambiguous allegations”, referring to its possible legalization within four years.
The court’s plenary said that it found that “in addition to the non-compliance with the legally established deadline”, PRA-JA joined required claims “without the expected improvement, suffering from them of certain clarity, objectivity, and greater specification”.
