In a speech that lasted an hour and a half, under intense heat that caused some fainting among the many who flocked to the Tafe Municipal Stadium, the MPLA president and head of the party's list for the elections scheduled for August proclaimed works and successes and reiterated the commitment by the executive, who has led since 2017, in "correcting what is wrong", also leaving some messages for the opposition
"We are going to have elections now in August. The political parties get ready, we are getting ready, we did a first training session for the game in the city of Ondjiva (Cunene) and we continue to train here in Cabinda if you don't say later that whoever won, won because the referee made it easy. The referees don't score a goal, the players are the ones who score, if the player doesn't score, the referee cannot invent it", he said in the final part of the speech.
"May each party do its job and may the best win", he added.
During the long speech, João Lourenço gave exhaustive numbers and details about the works carried out in the current term, focusing on the recent work on the hospital and maritime terminal in Cabinda, the city where he was since Thursday, and where he made several inaugurations as President.
The President's trips to the provinces, where he has also promoted pre-campaign actions as leader of the MPLA, have been criticized by the main opposition party, UNITA, which accuses the head of state of using the inaugurations to promote the party.
About 60,000 people are said to have been at the rally on Saturday, a crowd that, however, did not fill the venue, with several empty spaces that showed the degraded state of the tartan on the sports infrastructure track.
Among the cheers for João Lourenço, some jeers were also heard, while some made a sign of denial, expressing disagreement with João Lourenço's speech.
UNITA deputy Raul Tati denounced on social media that the rally had soldiers recruited from the FAA and disguised as civilians, civil servants and school students who provided buses to transport people from the interior of the province.
The deputy told Lusa that this is an old practice in which civil servants are coerced "with psychological pressure" and students "intimidated" with threats of absence or failure in the event of absence from the mass act.
João Lourenço focused the initial part of his speech on the development of Cabinda, which he said was "in full development", praising the fact that the streets were paved and he did not find "any holes" during the night walk he took on Friday.
He explained that, sometimes, the progress of the works is conditioned by the "not always easy" negotiation of credit lines, since not all of them are supported with ordinary resources from the Treasury.
He stressed that throughout his term of office he fought a relentless fight against corruption and called on the private sector to invest in the economy, so that the State would no longer be "the main actor", insisting on improving the business environment and diversifying the economy to end dependence on oil revenues, promising greater "ambition" and "boldness" for the next term.
João Lourenço returned to Luanda on Saturday, after a three-day visit to Cabinda, the northernmost province of the country and physically discontinued from the territory.
In this enclave, rich in oil, separatist movements that demand the self-determination of the region remain active.
