"We want to make it very clear that the FPU is a combination of efforts, but the entity that will compete is clearly UNITA, the leadership is from UNITA and the symbols are from UNITA", said this Tuesday the president of the parliamentary group of the Union National Assembly for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Liberty Chiyaka.
The "combination of efforts" within the largest opposition party, he explained, "is not something that, strictly speaking, is that new": "In all constituencies, UNITA has included in its lists Angolans who are not members of the UNITA, the law allows that, that's exactly what we're going to do".
"It so happens that this desire to unite energies, the same interest in saving Angola from the sameness embarrassed the regime, because the regime wanted to count on a fragmented opposition, it will not have", he assured.
The FPU "will continue to work to implement the alternation", he said at a press conference in Luanda.
The director of the political parties office of the Constitutional Court (TC) said, on Monday, that the FPU, a platform that brings together opposition parties and movements, cannot run for general elections or carry out party political acts.
According to Mauro Alexandre, who was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a training seminar for media professionals on the electoral process, in the context of the general elections scheduled for August, the FPU does not meet the legal requirements to present a candidacy as it is not an entity nor a coalition, since for that purpose it would have to be noted (recognized) by the TC.
"Under the terms of the constitution and the law, only political parties and coalitions that are legally constituted and that are registered with the Constitutional Court can apply for general elections", said the jurist and responsible for the office of political parties at the TC.
The FPU, led by the president of UNITA, Adalberto da Costa Júnior, the president of the Democratic Bloc, Filomeno Vieira Lopes, and the leader of the political project PRA JA-Servir Angola, Abel Chivukuvuku, was launched on 5 October 2021. and presents itself as an 'ad-hoc' movement that unites opposition forces for democratic alternation.
On the FPU, Liberty Chiyaka highlighted this Tuesday, "it is not even elegant for the court to rule on a matter that it does not know".
And he asked: "How can someone from the TC who has not received any request to annotate the FPU talk about the FPU?".
"What happens is that there is a total disruption on the part of the regime. The FPU is the expression of the will of Angolans, Angolan patriots, those who want an alternation of power, those who are tired of this failed governance", he noted.
"Those who aspire to a truly developed country, a country of solidarity, of social and economic justice, those who say enough with corruption, enough with bad governance, all these desires in UNITA, in PRA JA, in the Democratic Bloc, in civil society, these wills all identified an idea, strength, unity", he justified.
The chairman of the UNITA parliamentary group also challenged the TC to "show when UNITA or the Angolans would have addressed a request to request annotation".
"This is daring and makes the court look bad, because the court appears as an agent of the regime's propaganda, it got ugly, it shames us all, it can't be this way, the court has to make itself respected", he shot.
"How is the court going to talk about issues that it does not know? Those who have the obligation to comply and enforce the law are the first to violate it, we are in a very bad shape", he pointed out.
For the UNITA politician, "if the Angolan leaders, those who embody the FPU, had made the mistake of making a request to write down the FPU, at this moment we would not have strong opposition to confront the regime".
And deputy Leonel Gomes, who was not part of a parliamentary group and who also participated in the press conference, said on the occasion that the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), in power since 1975, "went into a tailspin as soon as it was constituted the FPU".
Leonel Gomes, who guaranteed to campaign "in favor of change" for the FPU, also said that "there are many people from the MPLA, and well positioned in the MPLA, who support the FPU".
"And we are going to win and we are going to end the abuses that have been imposed on us for 47 years", concluded the deputy.
The next general elections in Angola are scheduled for the second half of August.
