David Sambongo referred, in statements to the Lusa agency, about an incident recorded with a delegation from the parliamentary group of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in the province of Cuando Cubango, where they were on municipal meetings.
The UNITA parliamentary group, in a statement, said that the caravan "was the target of an attack perpetrated by supposed regime militias", which resulted in a total of nine injuries, two missing and material damage to nine of the eight vehicles in the convoy of deputies, information contradicted by the police, who pointed to four injured.
Initially, UNITA spoke of one death as a result of the incident, but later corrected the information.
According to the analyst, political intolerance in the country is still a major problem, largely due to the lack of political literacy, a job that must be carried out by the country's political elite, specifically the parties in opposition and in power.
"We need to work, we are coming from a civil conflict and after 22 years we still have this problem. This country will only be able to achieve, take advantage of the potential, in terms of natural resources and also in terms of geopolitical, geostrategic functioning if we have this capacity, this clarity of saying that we are effectively a democratic state based on the rule of law, that we accept difference", he considered.
The analyst highlighted that acts of political intolerance mostly occur in areas with many difficulties in basic social conditions, such as energy, basic sanitation, water and schools, which causes people to "become instrumentalized".
"Especially for the party in power, we are talking about the MPLA [Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola], those who are there in the interior", said David Sambongo, stressing that people "are sometimes instrumentalized with public programs and even financed by organizations international".
"We are talking about the 'kwenda' social monetary distribution program. The government is saying that it is distributing this money, when it is a social protection measure" and "the majority of this amount was allocated by the World Bank".
For the Angolan professor and writer, it is necessary to clarify to citizens that as the party in power has the legitimacy to govern, political parties with parliamentary seats also have the legitimacy to oppose.
David Sambongo highlighted that in these cases of political intolerance there is "a silence, a void, on the part of the Commander-in-Chief, the head of State, the holder of executive power", referring to the President of the Republic.
"President João Lourenço must speak out on this situation, with a commanding voice as the President of the Republic, [who] ends up being the center of the Angolan political system (...), so he has added responsibility and is also leader of the party with the largest parliamentary seat, which has governed Angola for almost half a century, must come to the rescue and vehemently condemn these types of practices", he highlighted.
On the matter, the provincial government of Cuando Cubango said that the facts do not correspond to the truth, considering it "an authentic act", referring to the local authorities' version that the caravan of deputies was stoned by some people at the headquarters of the Longa commune just on Friday morning and that no police escort was requested.
"As soon as it became known, the services of the provincial command of the National Police were called, which sent a police device to the scene, having established that it was an act carried out by ordinary citizens not affiliated with any political formation, who only threw solid objects to the aforementioned caravan", explained the local government, adding that the police are "working hard" to identify and hold those responsible for the action responsible.
