"Very likely there will be what the whole world least expects" if the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) repeats what it has done, he anticipates.
"The MPLA's problem today is not with the opposition. It is with the population. In other words, there will only be no confusion depending on the results: if the MPLA holds fair and transparent elections with the presence of observers and these elections are recognized by the MPLA itself, opposition in a normal way", he adds.
Victor Hugo Mendes, 40, launches on the 14th, in Lisbon, with the support of the Union of Portuguese-Speaking Capital Cities (UCCLA), his first children's book "O Tesouro da Menina do Cunene", a fictionalized story of a teenager from southern region of Angola.
The author was born in Malanje and, in Angola, he started at the Catholic radio station Rádio Ecclesia and collaborated on radio stations in Namibia and Angola. He was a presenter of programs on Televisão Pública de Angola and TV Zimbo and is currently a journalist at RTP África, where he presents and produces the program "Tem a Palavra", having already published four books.
His best-known phrase is "Whoever reads a book is never the same person again", and between 2014 and 2018 he toured Angola, where he fostered a taste for reading and distributed thousands of books, which were delivered to him by the Angolan authors, publishers and Union of Angolan Writers.
Now based in Portugal, Victor Hugo Mendes looks with disenchantment, and anger, at his country.
"Angola has been committing, in a way, an intellectual genocide. Because the commitment to education is much more present in the political discourse than in terms of practical realization", he accuses.
Victor Hugo Mendes considers that in Angola there is "a serious problem, which drags on", defending that "there are things that should be almost the exclusive responsibility of the State".
"What we did with education was a business", he says, highlighting the connection of people from the public education sector in business by opening private colleges and universities.
"You don't have any member of the Government whose child is in a public school. Well, that's how we measure the responsibility of our leaders in relation to their commitment to education. That's why I say that we are committing a intellectual genocide in relation to the education system itself", he adds.
The deficiencies he points out in educational training are reflected, he argues, in access to the labor market and results in an increase in unemployment, especially among younger people.
"They created an illusion in the minds of people in Angola that to earn well, you have to go to university. You have to have a university degree to earn well. (...) So there was a race for diplomas instead of knowledge" , says the writer.
However, he regrets: "People are at the university believing that from the moment they have their diploma, they will earn four, five, six, ten times more. They grow up with the idea that the best place to work is in the State, Why? Because the State pretends to pay and people will pretend to work".
The result, in his opinion, is disastrous: "Now the State has a very serious problem. The State no longer has the capacity to absorb labor from workers, it doesn't. The result is that you have the informal market every increasingly crowded with people with higher education. Therefore, we are committing this intellectual genocide because of priorities and because of needs, because of political convenience".
The fault, he points out, lies with the MPLA, the party that has governed Angola since independence from Portugal in 1975.
On the 4th of April, Angola completed 20 years of peace, but the balance that Victor Hugo Mendes makes is negative.
"The best balance I can make is to silence the guns, of course, with the disarming of the citizens it's obvious, it's the possibility of people being able to travel. (...) But from the point of view of freedoms, especially in recent five years, it regressed a lot", he adds.
Angola has scheduled general elections for August, in which the President of the Republic will be indirectly elected – as provided for in the Constitution.
"The MPLA, the only thing it has at the moment, in which it trusts, is the domain of the State apparatus climate in which the MPLA is clearly unfavorable".
For Victor Hugo Mendes, the "big problem and people's concern is if the MPLA wins in a transparent way, a fair and transparent election, with a clear process, will be normal the next day".
"Now, if the MPLA cheats as it has always done, if the elections are held as they have always done, then I will be honest with you: I am afraid, because we are going to have many deaths and a climate, let's say, of social upheaval", he says.
