"The issue of the suspension of the mandates that we requested has been a recurring theme for over a year. I had direct, personal dialogue with the president of UNITA, Adalberto da Costa Júnior, on several occasions in which this was clarified," the party leader noted.
On Thursday, the parliamentary leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Liberty Chiaka, stressed that the loss of mandates of the deputies who joined the PRA-JA did not result from "an act of treason" nor from the will of the party, but from the Constitution.
Deputies elected by UNITA requested the suspension of their mandate "due to political activities incompatible with the mandate under the terms of the Constitution and the law", due to their affiliation to PRA-JA, of which they are leaders, but ended up losing their mandates.
Liberty Chiaka also admitted that UNITA's parliamentary group was taken by surprise, as the request for suspension was first communicated to the president of the National Assembly, Carolina Cerqueira, whose office informed UNITA later.
On Saturday, Chivukuvuku denied that there had been any surprise and that the formal report was made directly to parliament.
"The formalization, in terms of documentation, is directly with the National Assembly, and that is what we did, that is not an issue", he pointed out, on the sidelines of a conversation with the Angolan community in Lisbon, as part of the inauguration of the party's headquarters in the Portuguese capital.
The PRA-JA headquarters in Lisbon, the first outside Angola, was inaugurated early Saturday afternoon, followed by a meeting with the community at a hotel in Lisbon, which was attended by more than a hundred people.
The ceremony inaugurated Isaías Sambangala as the representative of PRA-JA Servir Angola in Lisbon. In an interview with the media, he highlighted the importance of opening the party's first international headquarters, legalized in January.
"For us it means a lot, firstly this is a symbol of strength, of determination. It is the beginning of a new journey, and for us this symbolizes a great event," he said.
Chivukuvuku also addressed the presence of a party headquarters in Portugal, pointing out that Angolan legislation "provides for elections outside the country".
"We have a large segment of the Angolan diaspora in Portugal (...) and, therefore, we have to be attentive to the movements that are taking place", he pointed out.
After four years of trying to legalize his political project without success, Abel Chivukuku and his members joined the United Patriotic Front (FPU), a political platform that brings together the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), led by Adalberto Costa Júnior, the Democratic Bloc, led by Filomeno Vieira Lopes, and the political project PRA-JA Servir Angola at the time.
In the 2022 general elections, Abel Chivukuvuku ran for vice-president of the Republic, on the UNITA ticket, within the scope of the FPU.
