UNITA requested the Constitutional Court (TC) to declare the minutes of the definitive electoral results approved on 28 August ineffective and that the National Electoral Commission (CNE) be ordered to admit its complaints
According to the injunction, to which Lusa had access, UNITA – which according to the CNE, won 43.95% of the votes (90 seats) against 51.17% for the MPLA (124 seats) – contests the results and claims to have ascertained a different number of seats from what was disclosed by the body responsible for the Angolan electoral process.
The complaint against the CNE said that UNITA’s representative, David Horácio Junjuvili, who was present at the meeting on 28 August where the final tabulation of the results of the elections held on 24 August was approved, “disagreed with the results” and wanted his complaint to be recorded in the minutes, which was not done.
“Unexpectedly, he was prevented from exercising his right to complain on the grounds that his claim was untimely,” said the document, which was filed with the Supreme Court on Friday.
In the injunction, UNITA said that “the CNE failed” to respect the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms and the fulfilment of constitutional and legal duties, which is “illegitimate and criminally punishable the taking and exercise of political power, based on violent means or by other means not provided for or in accordance with the Constitution”.
They also stressed that the exercise of political power lacked legitimacy and that “UNITA’s complaint about the election results, on which the CNE incorrectly attributed more mandates to the MPLA candidacy, must be rigorously attended to”.
The document consulted by Lusa also stressed that “the non-admission of the complaint” “may cause serious damage of difficult reparation to the legal sphere of UNITA’s candidacy and the state, since the exercise of political power is at stake here”.
The injunction also questioned the CNE’s interest in rushing the publication of the definitive election results: “God knows why there is such a rush since the CNE is not interested in the dispute over political power”, it concluded.
In another appeal delivered to the TC on Thursday, UNITA presented allegations on what it considers to be illegal electoral acts, “which should be null and void” and could lead to the annulment of the 24 August general elections.
“We point out, in the application, the illegality of acts that should be considered null and void, and the nullity automatically leads to annulment. It is the court that has to annul [the elections],” a source close to the leadership of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) told Lusa on Saturday.
Angola’s Constitutional Court announced on Friday that UNITA and CASA-CE, both in opposition, had filed appeals regarding the electoral process with that body, but none of them concerning the annulment of the elections.
“The court received two complaints late yesterday afternoon [Thursday], two requests that initiate electoral litigation, one from UNITA and another from the CASA-CE coalition,” said the court’s spokeswoman Aida Gonçalves.
On a possible request for the annulment of the elections, the director of the political parties’ office at the court, Mauro Alexandre, said that, of the processes that were received, none of them made reference in terms of requests for the annulment of general elections, but did not specify their content.
UNITA is demanding that Angola’s National Electoral Commission (CNE) compares the minutes of polling stations in its possession with the minutes held by the parties, contesting the fact that the authorities did not even provide the polling station data that allowed for the final accounting.
Last Monday, CNE President Manuel Pereira da Silva released the final tallies of the 24 August general elections, which declared the MPLA and its candidate, João Lourenço, as the winners with 51.17% of the votes, followed by UNITA with 43.95%.
With these results, the MPLA won 124 seats and UNITA 90 seats, almost double the 2017 elections.
The Social Renewal Party (PRS) won two seats in parliament by adding 1.14% of the votes, the same number of seats won by the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the Humanist Party of Angola (PHA) with 1.06% and 1.02% of the votes respectively.
The CASA-CE coalition, APN and P-Njango did not win any seats in the National Assembly, which in the 2022-2027 legislature will have 220 members.
