João Lourenço, who was speaking this Saturday at the launch of the Political Agenda 2024 of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), said that the National Assembly of Angola is the stage where the legislative package will be approved, with joint work of the political forces represented , “and not on the streets”.
“If there is anyone more interested in seeing local power implemented as quickly as possible, it is us who are currently governing the country, and the proof of this is that those who sometimes send the wrong, false, misleading message that they are more interested in the creation of local authorities than us, they were not the ones who took the initiative”, he pointed out.
In front of thousands of activists of the party he leads, in this event that took place in the Urban District of Camama, in Luanda, João Lourenço, who spoke as president of the MPLA, the party that has governed Angola since 1975, said that it was his Government that spoke for first time of the need to hold the first local elections in Angola.
He recalled that his executive prepared and sent the municipal legislative package to parliament, where most of the diplomas have already been approved, with only the Law on the Institutionalization of Local Authorities missing.
The president of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Adalberto Costa Júnior, promised, last January, to promote this year, throughout the country, a broad mobilization for local authorities to resume attention on the national agenda, noting that the implementation of these “are totally rejected by the regime”.
On Saturday, in response to the opposition's claim, the MPLA president criticized the alleged holding of street demonstrations to “demand” the first local councils in Angola, having highlighted that they will not leave the streets.
“To this day we don't have local authorities and we are hearing that someone is organizing street demonstrations to demand local authorities. Will local authorities get off the streets? Is it on the streets that we will approve the laws that are still missing? And when they say demand, who are they going to demand from?”, he asked.
Alluding to the statements made by the leader of UNITA, João Lourenço considered that local authorities “are not required, they are not offered, they are working to achieve this objective”.
“But, as they are averse to work, the only job they know is to cause disorder, they are preparing to cause disorder, to do what they call demanding local authorities”, he criticized.
The president of the “comrades” party also criticized the opposition, which he considered to be frightened by the decentralization program, which introduces the new Political and Administrative Division (DPA), providing for the creation of two more provinces (totaling 20) and 161 new municipalities (totaling 365).
According to the head of state, his government is taking the task of decentralization seriously, a process that is being encouraged, he stressed, by the “success” of the Integrated Plan for Intervention in Municipalities (PIIM).
“This is what is encouraging us to go further, to bring this State power closer and closer to the citizen, but we are also aware that just taking State power further is not everything, we also need to create the other power, the autarchic power, which will not conflict with the power of the State”, he highlighted.
MPLA – Serving the People and Making Angola Grow is the motto of the party's political agenda for 2024.
