Hundreds of Angolans protested this Saturday against the difficulties facing the country after the Constitutional Court denied the legalization of PRA-JA Servir Angola, a political project by Abel Chivukuvuku.
Hundreds of protesters, who claimed to be “tired” of the economic and social difficulties that the country is experiencing, this Saturday joined the march against the decision of the Constitutional Court, which denied the legalization of PRA-JA Servir Angola, a political project by Abel Chivukuvuku.
At 9:00 am, several people, mostly young people, began to gather near the Santa Ana Cemetery, with posters criticizing the Constitutional Court’s stance on the process of legalizing the Angola Renaissance Party – Together for Angola – Serving Angola (PRA-JA Servir Angola).
The march began at 1 pm – in compliance with the demonstration law – as soon as Abel Chivukuvuku arrived at the scene, ahead of close to 600 demonstrators, including Luís Valente, coordinator of the Luanda municipality, of PRA-JA Servir Angola.
Speaking to Lusa, Luís Valente spoke out against the court’s decision, which despite having met all legal requirements for party validation, rejected the process.
“We comply with everything that the law emanates. We gave the 32 thousand signatures, which is not only this assumption, among them 4,500 already recognized in the notary, adding that those that the court has already approved, obviously we have more than 8 thousand signatures and the law only provides for 7 thousand, but the court made a decision non-legal politics, this is the reason why we are here on this march to repudiate the court, ”he said.
Luís Valente stressed that the fight for legalization will persist as Abel Chivukuvuku said this Saturday to the protesters.
“We will fight until we win the court of this decision, not legal but political,” he said.
In turn, Yarete Simão said that he joined the demonstration, “how much the people are upset by the country’s situation”.
“The people are tired, hungry, thirsty, misery, at all levels, we are tired and we prefer the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, party in power) to rest, so I invite all young people to join the manifestation, whatever it may be ”, he stressed.
Yarete Simão is also convinced that the court’s decision is political.
“There is nothing legal about it, so the court has to review the way of working, because that way Angola does not go far,” he condemned.
Olívio João Ribeiro said that he participated in the march because he wants improvements for the country, “since there is a lot of suffering in Angola and the dictatorship continues”.
“I participated in this event to give my contribution as an Angolan citizen, but there is an obstacle, because of the system that governs the country, the MPLA”, said Olívio João Ribeiro, stressing that the event was peaceful and orderly.
“But our objective was to reach the court, the police prevented us from reaching the court”, underlined the protester, noting that “there was no vandalism”, compared to previous demonstrations held in the Angolan capital, which ended, some of them in deaths, the destruction of public and private property and arrests.
“We are doing a peaceful thing, respecting all the rules of social distance, but even so the police blocked the way”, said Olívio João Ribeiro, on the role of the police, meanwhile, praised by the coordinator of the installation commission of PRA-JA Servir Angola, Abel Chivukuvuku.
Regarding the court’s decision, the protester considered it “disgusting”, stressing that the population present at the march is the one who signed the documents.
“How does the court have the courage to say that the signatures are false. If they were false, this population would not be here, because whoever is here is the one who signed, there is no logic in this decision ”, he considered.
The Angolan Constitutional Court definitively rejected the PRA-JA Servir Angola claim, for “not making up for shortcomings” and presenting “ambiguous allegations”, referring to its possible legalization within four years.
The decision of the plenary of judges of the Constitutional Court follows the most recent appeal with allegations presented by the installation commission, in which it challenged the order of rejection of that instance, dated August 27, 2020, after other previous leads to the legalization process started in 2019.
Judgment No. 654/2020 states that the allegations about the rejection of an extraordinary appeal of unconstitutionality, brought in Judgment 632/2020, contain “several inaccuracies”.
Abel Chivukuvuku promised when he addressed the protesters that he will continue to fight in court for the legalization of PRA-JA Servir Angola and to hold demonstrations across the country next year.
