In his speech at the New Year's greetings ceremony, Adalberto Costa Júnior said that the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) established priorities for the year that has just begun, giving the motto: 2024 – Year of National Mobilization for Authorities.
"We are going to take a broad mobilization across the country so that the local authorities can return to the national agenda. The local authorities and the implementation of local elections are totally rejected by the regime", he defended.
According to the president of UNITA, the approval of the laws has been prevented, stressing that the entire municipal package was voted in the National Assembly in general in April 2019.
"One month was enough for us to have everything approved in May 2019 in the specialty. They were delaying and now only one law is missing: the Law for the Institutionalization of Local Authorities. And as there are no more excuses for not scheduling it, the strategists of the regime invented the multiplication of municipalities and the political-administrative division, whose sole objective is to prevent the realization of local power", stated Adalberto Costa Júnior.
The leader of the largest opposition party considered that "the problem lies in the mental formatting of the leaders of the governing party, who have a centralized education of the party state and know that they can only survive by delaying the real democratization of the country."
According to Adalberto Costa Júnior, "today the country is moving backwards, sideways, taking one step forward and three steps back", with Angolans being "hostage to a small group".
The President, João Lourenço, announced in his first term, which began in 2017, that the first local elections in Angola would take place in 2020, which has not yet materialized, according to the head of state, because the local legislative package has not yet been completed.
The politician highlighted that the proposal to dismiss the President was delivered to the National Assembly, but the document was never distributed "neither to the parliamentary groups nor to the Specialty Committees", and "due to violations of the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly it is now at table of the Judges of the Constitutional Court".
"This UNITA initiative does not mean on our part an option to break with the President of the Republic, but only the exhaustion of all steps taken towards the legality of its acts and the invitation to embrace the CRA [Constitution of the Republic of Angola] and laws, for a better Angola for everyone", he highlighted.
Regarding the year that ended, Adalberto Costa Júnior said that 2023 was considered the worst year in the history of governance since peace was embraced, because "Angolans witnessed an unprecedented degradation in their living conditions".
Despite the rise in oil prices and the positive differential, which generated billions of dollars for the State's coffers, continued the UNITA leader, Angolans are unaware of the "destination given by the Government to all this money".
"Despite the inaugurations and new hospitals, social conflicts have affected all professional classes. The rush abroad has multiplied. The queues at the embassies are endless and even members of the Government, who talk so much about improving services, continue to worrying about seeking these same services abroad and not consuming the national offer", he criticized.
Regarding the Commission for Reconciliation in Memory of the Victims of Conflicts (Civicop), the president of UNITA said that "it was the target of political assassination, after leaving a sad legacy of false bones handed over to families and after the country's highest leaders handed over this important program at the service of party intoxication, with the wrong involvement of the intelligence services in delicate matters".
