"This issue of local authorities in this year 2024 will dominate the national debate", analyst Albino Pakisi told Lusa, reflecting on the speeches of the leaders of the two largest Angolan parties – Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in power, and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), in opposition – which launched its political agenda for the current year on Saturday.
The two party leaders, João Lourenço, also President of the Republic, and Adalberto Costa Júnior, converged on the topic and exchanged messages, with the MPLA president saying that local authorities should not be demanded on the streets but rather in the National Assembly, while the president UNITA proposes local authorities for 2024.
For Albino Pakisi, local elections are "an urgency" because many municipal administrators [appointed by provincial governments] do not fulfill the communities' wishes.
In the UNITA leader's speech, he also highlighted concerns about the new National Security Law, because it provides that the State Intelligence and Security Services (SINSE) can turn off the Internet and communications when appropriate, which he considered "a danger".
"Let's go back, João Lourenço cannot reach this point, he represented great hope in 2017 when he said he was not afraid of the implementation of local authorities and more freedom of expression and of the media itself", criticized the commentator.
Albino Pakisi stressed that, as it builds infrastructure for local authorities, the MPLA is also preparing its staff, stressing that UNITA wants to maintain pressure on the President because it knows that he has influence over the parliamentary group to the discussion and approval of the municipal package.
"At the end of the day, the President of the Republic is in charge", he said, admitting that there is some fear on the part of the MPLA about going to local authorities now because many administrators have demonstrated incompetence and João Lourenço wants to "prepare comrades who are not addicted".
"(The MPLA and João Lourenço) realized that there are a lot of addicted people who are in the State administration and could lose with UNITA because UNITA has more rigor and more party discipline and has more honest people, because UNITA in the woods has learned not to steal and not be corrupted and I think they are afraid of losing many municipalities to UNITA and the opposition", he said, admitting that the MPLA is preparing to implement the municipalities in 2025.
Regarding the simultaneous implementation of the new Administrative Political Division (DPA), he considered that it does not interfere with the implementation of local authorities, because these must be carried out in phases.
"I think both things can be done at the same time," he said.
Regarding the demonstrations, which UNITA has already said it wants to do this year, while the MPLA responded that local authorities do not take place on the streets, Albino Pakisi considered that "things will get tougher on one side and the other, on the Government's side with the Law of National Security, on the UNITA side with more street protests".
He also highlighted that UNITA must show its voters that it is not equal to the MPLA, after accepting the results of the 2022 elections, despite considering that they were not transparent or fair, and that the deputies elected on their lists have taken the their seats in the National Assembly.
"In 2022, UNITA did not take to the streets because Adalberto was advised that there would be a bloodbath and the troops would come out immediately (...) But if, in 2027, UNITA does not take to the streets as it is promising people They will say that UNITA and MPLA are the same thing", he highlighted.
Albino Pakisi also spoke about the high prices and the discontent of the Angolan population, which is being used by UNITA in his favor.
"The MPLA can pressure with laws, it can pressure with the military, but if the whole people take to the streets the MPLA will not crush the whole people, it will not be sensible to fight with the people", he warned, reinforcing that the party leader "is to take advantage of the moment of fragility of the MPLA governance to play all its cards".
