The initiative of the National Assembly, proposed by the president, Carolina Cerqueira, was appreciated and approved this Monday at the conference of the presidents of the parliamentary groups, as the person in charge made known at the end of the meeting.
"Next Friday morning, we are going to have an extraordinary plenary meeting to propose the composition of the board of the National Assembly, resuming the proposal that UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) had made in September when the bodies were constituted of the National Assembly", said Carolina Cerqueira.
For the president of parliament, the proposal for the definitive election of the board of the body "responds to the need" to strengthen "the institutional role of the National Assembly with plurality and a democratic spirit".
"And, above all, with the opportunity for us all to contribute, the parties that sit in this great house, in a constructive, appeasing way, which can effectively contribute to the strengthening of democracy and to the institutional role that the Assembly has been playing", she stressed.
On September 16, 2022, the day the deputies were sworn in, UNITA left the plenary room en bloc while the constituent meeting of the fifth legislature was taking place, for "breach of political commitment" by the MPLA, which "imposed" a second vice president to parliament.
UNITA, which elected 90 deputies in the general elections on 24 August against 124 from the MPLA, argues that a deputy from its party should hold the position of second vice-president of parliament.
"It was for breach of political commitment. We dealt with it from the morning - in fact the session was very long, because a long process of consultation between the MPLA and UNITA parliamentary group was underway - and after long hours of consultation they broke the commitment", explained to Lusa, on the occasion, the deputy of UNITA, Liberty Chiyaka.
Without the UNITA deputies in the plenary, the deputies of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Américo Kuononoca and Raul Lima were nominated and elected first and second vice-presidents of the parliament, respectively, with 123 votes in favor of the MPLA and two abstentions of the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA).
MPLA deputies Manuel Lopes Dembo and Rosa Branca Albino were elected to the positions of first and second secretary of the National Assembly with only favorable votes from the governing party.
UNITA, days later, announced the challenge, before the Constitutional Court (TC), of the resolution that approved the election of the second vice-president of the National Assembly, appointed and imposed by the MPLA, considering that the process was "unconstitutional and without legitimacy".
This Monday, the president of parliament assured that the body will resume UNITA's proposal for the seats on the table of the National Assembly, namely the second and fourth vice-presidents of the legislative body.
"On Friday we are going to vote in the plenary and we think that it will be a fundamental contribution of the National Assembly for the reinforcement of plurality, democracy and the democratic State based on the rule of law", insisted Carolina Cerqueira.
The president of the MPLA parliamentary group, Virgílio de Fontes Pereira, reacting to the proposal for the final composition of the National Assembly board, praised the initiative of the body's president and considered that the "political country has made history today".
"We had the opportunity to listen to the proposal of the President of the National Assembly in the sense that we could resume the discussion and make a decision on the definitive composition of the National Assembly table", he said.
According to him, the MPLA parliamentary group agreed to understand "that it is time" to definitively resolve a problem "that is creating constraints, especially in terms of political perception",
With this solution, added Virgílio de Fontes Pereira, welcoming the "prompt agreement" of the other parliamentary groups, it will "definitely stabilize the functioning of the National Assembly board and cease to be an irritant for parliament".
On his side, the president of UNITA's parliamentary group, Liberty Chiyaka saluted the political courage of the president of parliament, in agreeing to her party's proposal, considering that this was a very relevant political decision.
"We first want to salute the president's political courage, under her initiative, and also the political support given by the parliamentary group MPLA. As of today, Angolans can have confidence in the National Assembly, we are up to the challenges, we are not going to look to the past", he defended.
On the challenge of the election of the second vice-president of the National Assembly before the TC, Chiyaka said that, with this decision, "the conflict ends" in parliament and that his party will withdraw the process from the judicial instance.
