News from Angola – The Constitutional Court (TC) validated, this Thursday, the results of the last general elections in Angola, with victory for the MPLA and its presidential candidate, João Lourenço, with 51.17 percent of the votes.
According to ANGOP, the confirmation of the victory of the outgoing government party followed the rejection of the contentious appeal filed by UNITA, to demand the change, in its favor, of the definitive results of the ballot.
In its ruling on the matter, the TC says that it rejected UNITA’s appeal due to the lack of a prior complaint with the National Electoral Commission (CNE) and the insufficiency or ineffectiveness of the evidence presented.
This is the second and final contentious appeal rejected by the TC regarding the general elections of August 24th, after that of CASA-CE.
The decision puts an end to the phase of complaints against the definitive electoral results announced by the CNE and paves the way for the inauguration of João Lourenço as elected President of the Republic and Esperança Maria Francisco da Costa as Vice-President of the Republic.
The 220 elected deputies to the National Assembly must also take office, 124 from the MPLA, 90 from UNITA and six from three other parties that obtained two seats each.
The inauguration of the newly elected President of the Republic was supposed to take place within 15 days after the announcement of the definitive results of the general elections by the CNE but was delayed by appeals filed by the dissatisfied parties.
In the CNE classification, UNITA and its leader Adalberto Costa Júnior came in second place with 43.95 percent of the votes, and Manuel Fernandes’ CASA-CE in sixth place with 0.76 percent.
The two political formations declared themselves unhappy with the results and asked for the intervention of the TC as the Electoral Court to “restore” the electoral truth of the ballot boxes.
UNITA intended to obtain a correction in the number of deputies allocated to it in the provinces of Luanda, Zaire, Cuando Cubando and Namibe.
For its part, CASA-CE, which was left without any deputies compared to 16 in the previous legislature, demanded the same in relation to the provinces of Huambo, Benguela and Cuanza-Norte, where it claims to have received fewer votes than due.
With an abstention rate of 55.18 percent and the highest in the country’s history, the vote on August 24th saw the participation of six million, 454 thousand (44.82%) of the more than 14 million voters registered.
The MPLA obtained around three million, 209 thousand votes corresponding to 124 parliamentary seats against two million, 786 thousand votes and 90 deputies from UNITA.
In third place, Benedito Daniel’s PRS won 71 thousand 351 votes (1.14%) and two deputies, recovering the third position in the hemicycle lost to CASA-CE in the 2012 general elections.
Next are the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) led by Nimi a Nsimbi, and the debutant Humanist Party of Angola (PHA), led by Florbela Catarina Malaquias, all with two deputies each.
The National Patriotic Alliance (APN), led by Quintino Moreira, and the equally debuting Nationalist Party for Justice in Angola (P-NJANGO) led by Eduardo “Dinho” Chingunji were also left without a parliamentary seat.
The latter two are exposed to extinction by the Constitutional Court for having fallen below 0.5 percent as the minimum percentage value imposed by law for the survival of political parties.