João Lourenço says there are no conditions for municipalities in the country
MPLA President João Lourenço assured at a meeting to celebrate the 64 years of the ruling party in Angola that municipal elections will take place at the right time when conditions are created.
The President of the Republic also stressed that, contrary to what the opposition and vast sectors of civil society say, he is the most interested in holding the elections, but not in a busy way and without respecting the laws.
The opposition and civil society react by saying that the MPLA is afraid to share power.
The year 2020 is already over and the year 2021 should also not be the year of the first municipal elections, as the State Budget for the next year already approved has no line for this purpose.
UNITA, the largest in the opposition, considers that the MPLA has always been afraid to share power and is afraid.
“The majority parliamentary group belongs to the MPLA, it is the group that has prevented the discussion and approval of the law that institutionalizes the local authorities, the argument that there are no conditions and that the MPLA wants the local authorities is false”, states the “first -minister ”of UNITA’s shadow government, Raúl Danda, for whom“ the MPLA never agreed to share power and because carrying out fraud in 164 municipalities is more complicated, so it doesn’t even want municipal elections ”.
Makuta Nkondo, also a deputy elected by CASA-CE but now independent, believes that João Lourenço and his party would not stand a chance in clean elections.
“The MPLA does not want to know about local elections because it knows that the fraud machine is much more difficult to achieve success in local elections, these members of the Executive would not win even one vote in free and transparent elections, not even in their own homes, he João Lourenço himself if he is a candidate for any municipality in Angola does not pass ”, says Nkondo.
For his part, Aleixo Sobrinho, a member of the Institute for Democracy and Development (IDD), is of the opinion that João Lourenço just wants to save time with these pronouncements.
João Lourenço showed once again his fear of losing power because Angola now has only the cities it has through the municipalities and at this moment Angola is the only one in Southern Africa that does not implement the municipalities, which shows a not serious and this justifies the statements made by the President ”, sustains Sobrinho.
The academic and MPLA member Israel Bonifácio takes the opposite position for those who do not get the idea that his party is afraid of holding local elections.
“I do not see the fear that the MPLA would have to hold municipal elections if the MPLA is the largest party in the country, it won the elections in 2017 with some freedom, there is a commitment by the Executive and the President of the Republic to carry out the municipal elections in function of the preparation of the Council of the Republic in 2018, and there is clearly a constitutional and political commitment by the Head of State to concretize the municipalities in Angola ”, says Bonifácio.
In the speech of the commemorations of the 64 years of the MPLA, on Saturday, 12th, João Lourenço also accused some parties and civil society forces of positioning themselves as if they were “the only ones interested” in the holding of municipal elections.
Lourenço recalled that the MPLA, through its parliamentary group, “has contributed a lot to the approval of the laws that are part of the so-called Municipal Legislative Package”, but said that there are still no conditions to hold municipal elections in Angola.
