By Carlos Rosado de Carvalho
Africa-Press – Angola. The President of Angola, João Lourenço, gave an interview this week to the main public television channel. Well, I don’t know if I can really call it an interview. It was more of a monologue, interrupted a few times by the well-behaved interviewer, giving the President tips or cues to say what he wanted.
Finally, as we know, all television stations in Angola are controlled by the government, especially the public ones. The presidents and boards of directors are all appointed by João Lourenço himself. But what is being said about this interview? First of all, the timing. Why now? Analysts have a very simple answer to this.
Last week, a newspaper reported that a prominent MPLA member of the Central Committee, who had served as a minister many times, was a governor, and had always held high positions, a general, Higino Carneiro, requested an audience with João Lourenço where he told him that he intended to run for President of the Republic. And this interview was a response to Higino Carneiro. It is important to understand the context.
João Lourenço is serving his second term as President of the Republic of Angola. The Angolan Constitution only allows for two terms. But João Lourenço wants to continue to influence the life of Angola, so as not to be persecuted later.
Unable to change the Constitution because he does not have two-thirds of the National Assembly, João Lourenço chose another strategy, and that strategy is to remain president of the MPLA. The president of the MPLA has tremendous power over MPLA members who hold public office. It turns out that there was no possibility for João Lourenço to run again for the presidency of the MPLA because the MPLA statutes required that the party president be the candidate for the Presidency of the Republic.
This obstacle was eliminated with the amendment of the statutes, which, contrary to the Constitution, João Lourenço managed to make. And so, the problem is the following: the president of the MPLA, as I said, has enormous power over the militants who hold public office, including the President of the Republic. According to the new MPLA statutes, the President of the Republic has to submit to the party president the general lines of the government structure and even the names of future ministers.
And so, what João Lourenço, in practice, intends to do is to continue as President of the Republic, sorry, to continue as president of the party and, from then on, to influence Angolan public life. And so, for that to happen, he needs to have a president of the Republic to his liking and that is basically what is at stake from my point of view. We will see in the future.
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