Africa-Press – Angola. The plenary of the National Electoral Commission rejected, this Tuesday, the requests for complaints from CASA-CE and UNITA, for lack of legal foundations and procedural assumptions such as legitimacy and also for noting the lack of “a necessary legal work in the parts”.
The CNE spokesperson explained that CASA-CE and UNITA requested, respectively, the posting of the summary minutes at polling stations and the correction of the results obtained in the provincial district of Moxico. Lucas Quilundo pointed out, by the way, that the plenary concluded that the complaints presented by the two competing political forces have no technical and legal opportunity.
The plenary, meeting in the 32nd extraordinary session, under the guidance of the president of the CNE, Manuel Pereira da Silva, considered the requests in depth, having taken the decision to reject them. Speaking to the press, spokesman Lucas Quilundo indicated that CASA-CE intended, with the complaint, for the CNE to post the summary minutes at polling stations. He added, however, that since the applicant had not provided evidence, as required by article 154 of the Organic Law on General Elections, the plenary of the CNE rejected the request.
Regarding UNITA, he said that his first complaint, signed by the party’s representative, required the National Electoral Commission to include in the Acta de Apuramento Nacional das Elections Generales dated 24 August its rejection request.
Without going into details, which UNITA “refusal” referred to, Lucas Quilundo clarified that the request did not receive a favorable opinion from the plenary, as it was submitted to the CNE outside the time stipulated by law.
“The intention of the representative of UNITA, to record in the minutes his complaint, the content of which was unknown, cannot be met, insofar as the Minutes of the National Tabulation of Definitive Results had already been approved, without any dispute”, he explained. Lucas Quilundo.
A third complaint, also by UNITA and signed by its representative to the Provincial Electoral Commission of Moxico, sought to correct the results of this political formation, obtained in this provincial circle, which was also not answered.
The spokesperson clarified that the CNE did not agree to the request, due to the lack of legitimacy of the representative, as he is a representative constituted in Moxico, at the level of the UNITA Provincial Commission in that province, a condition that does not give him legitimacy to request or argue with the plenary of the National Electoral Commission.
Lucas Quilundo said that the session was exclusive to CNE members, but for reasons linked to transparency and the need to impart some pedagogy to the process, the plenary allowed the assistants of the political parties and their respective representatives to be present.
Definitive Results
The National Electoral Commission (CNE) declared, Monday, 29, in Luanda, João Lourenço President of the Republic and Esperança Costa Vice-President of the Republic, after releasing the final results of the General Elections of 24 August, which confirmed the MPLA as winning party, with 3,209,429 votes, corresponding to 51.17 percent.
The president of the CNE, Manuel Pereira da Silva, who presented the final results, said that the UNITA party was in second place, with 2,756,786 votes, corresponding to 43.95 percent. With these results, he continued, the MPLA elects 124 deputies, while the Galo Negro obtained 90 seats.
Thus, the PRS, with 71,351 votes, equivalent to 1.14 percent, the FNLA, with 66,337 votes, corresponding to 1.06 percent, and the PHA, with 63,749, equivalent to 1.02 percent, elected each two deputies.
CASA-CE obtained 47,446 votes, corresponding to 0.76 percent, APN, 30,139 votes, equivalent to 0.48 percent, and P-JANGO, with 26,867 votes, corresponding to 0.42 percent, did not elect any congressperson.
The president of the CNE, Manuel Pereira da Silva, said, during the presentation of the final results, that the tally of the General Elections, according to the votes cast, confirms the MPLA with 124 deputies, UNITA with 90, PRS, FNLA and PHA with two deputies each. In this order, CASA-CE, APN and P-JANGO did not obtain, as the minutes attest, any deputy.
Manuel Pereira da Silva recalled, on the occasion, that “it is up to the CNE to centralize all the results obtained by each competing political formation, and to proceed with the proclamation of the President of the Republic, the head of the list by the national circle of the most voted party, the Vice-President of the Republic, the second head of the list of the most voted party, and the distribution of the seats of the deputies to the National Assembly”.
The president of the CNE said that a total of 14,399,391 voters were registered for the General Elections, with 6,454,109 voting, which corresponds to 44.82 percent of citizens. He noted that 7,945,282 voters did not vote (55.18 percent), polling stations recorded 107,746 blank votes (1.67 percent), and 74,259 null votes (1.15 percent).
The elections, he said, had 6,272,104 valid votes (97.18 percent). 26,488 polling stations were available, distributed in 164 municipalities in the 18 provinces, to serve voters in the country. Abroad, the process mobilized 45 polling stations, distributed in the cities of some diplomatic missions and consulates in Angola, namely Cape Town, Pretoria and Johannesburg (South Africa), Berlin (Germany), Brussels (Belgium), Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and São Paulo (Brazil), Brazzaville, Belize and Ponta Negra (Republic of Congo), Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Matadi (DRC), Paris (France), Rotterdam (Netherlands), Oshakati, Rundu and Windhoek, (Namibia), Lisbon and Porto (Portugal), Solwezi, Lusaka and Mongu (Zambia) and London (Great Britain).
Valid Votes
President Manuel Pereira da Silva explained that, based on the assessment reports of the votes claimed at the polling stations and reassessed by the plenary sessions of the 18 provincial electoral commissions and by the Plenary of the CNE, the valid votes were distributed as follows: “117 votes for the party PHA; 54 for P-JANGO; 2,939 for UNITA; 168 for FNLA; 73 for CASA-CE; 67 for APN; 148 for PRS; and 4,364 votes for MPLA.
For these General Elections, the Constitutional Court validated the candidacies of seven political parties and a coalition of political parties, namely MPLA, UNITA, PRS, FNLA, PHA, APN, P-JANGO and CASA-CE. Each political formation competing for the elections received, for the electoral campaign, the value of four hundred and forty-four million, eight hundred and two thousand kwanzas (444,802,000 Kz).
Depending on the final electoral results, the APN and P-JANGO parties are awaiting the Constitutional Court’s pronouncement, since, under legal terms, they can be extinguished, for not reaching 0.5 percent of the votes. CASA-CE, which managed to overcome the 0.70 percent barrier, maintains active political activity, but does not participate in parliamentary debates, as it does not elect any deputy.
CNE without complaints about the results
Of the three complaints made by the National Electoral Commission, he stressed, none is related to the publication of the final results of the General Elections on August 24, said spokesman Lucas Quilundo.
“That is why the plenary allowed permanent assistants and candidates to attend the meeting, in order to emphasize the pedagogical character that is intended to give an understanding of the electoral process”, he stressed.
Once the final results have been released by the CNE, he said, political groups can use the right of complaint, and, if they still do not agree with the answers obtained, they can appeal, through the litigation of the Constitutional Court.
Lucas Quilundo also warned that the law establishes a legal deadline of 72 hours for competing parties to send any concerns to the CNE. After this period, they started to interact with the Constitutional Court, in the guise of an electoral court.
Confronted if, so far, any party has already referred a case to the Constitutional, the spokesman said he had no knowledge. “If any competing political force sent, we don’t know in what context. If they do, the Court will notify the National Electoral Commission”, he stressed.
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