Speaking to Lusa news agency, Lucas Ngonda was reacting to the FNLA's 5th ordinary congress, which elected party leader Pedro Dala on Tuesday in Luanda.
"We are in a state of law, he did what he did and I have the right to restore the legality of things, we will impugn, because it is an illegal congress," said Lucas Ngonda, reaffirming that the party congress will take place from September 16 to 18, date that the Constitutional Court is aware of.
According to Lucas Ngonda, candidate for his succession with seven other candidates, Pedro Dala, former secretary-general of the party, removed from office in 2020, wants "at all costs to be president of the FNLA."
"To become president of the FNLA one has to obey the dictates of the statutes and the norms of the Angolan legal system, we will not become president just like that. He wanted to remove me from office, I suspended him from his functions and then he went on to create a wing to fight the party leadership, this is not normal. This kind of show can only happen in Angola", he criticized.
The politician stressed that Pedro Dala does not gather consensus and has no internal support, arguing that the party's central committee has 411 members and only a little more than half participated in the congress.
"Not even the entire central committee was at the congress and besides, according to the results that were transmitted to me, I believe that 170 is not enough for the said president and 26 for the one who didn't get the majority, this all adds up to 200 and few people who were there. If this is a congress with 500 people, as the radio stations reported (...) does this mean that the majority did not vote, what validity does this congress have?", he asked.
For Lucas Ngonda, "all of this is just another show, which is sad, which satisfies no one".
According to Ngonda, other factors also intervene for the current situation of the party, namely financial.
"This is a party that was left in almost total misery, the others did everything and achieved things, but the FNLA was left out of the country's institutions and consequently all the battalion of unemployed and desperate people are here and think that the FNLA is the one that is going to give them the reward for the liberation struggle that they made and they are making a mess, not knowing that they are harming themselves if they don't let the party advance", he stressed.
Asked if he will be open to welcoming the disaffected groups if he wins the election, Lucas Ngonda stressed that it was these people who ran away from that possibility.
"They were all in the framework of the spirit of unity that I opened, but they ran away from unity because they saw that there are weaknesses. The general secretary who now calls himself president, the central committee wanted to expel him from the party three times, the last time he was even going to take physical action with him, I had to prevent this," he stressed.
The also deputy to the National Assembly stressed that several times he has tried to unite the party, and his initiative was the "Pact for Unity and Reconciliation and Internal Cohesion of the Party," signed in 2019, with the aim of putting an end to internal divisions that have affected the party for more than 20 years.
Lucas Ngonda accuses Pedro Dala of having sabotaged the pact, considering unfounded the arguments that he would be violating the agreement by running again for another term.
"I didn't say that in the pact, what I said is that it would be a transition, which was my idea. I said that I intended to leave my duties and do something else, so we will prepare a transition that would go until 2022 and in that transition we will see who will be the head of the list [for the general elections], who will be the president of the party, but I will no longer be part of the institutions," he explained.
The idea of transition, according to Ngonda, was accepted by all and was under discussion for five months, after which the group of Ngola Kabangu, his opponent in the party leadership, gave up the negotiations.
The FNLA president, in the party leadership since 2010, is running for his succession with candidates Carlito Roberto, son of the late founding leader Holden Roberto, Alvaro Manuel, Fernando Pedro Gomes, Laiz Eduardo, Joveth de Sousa, Fernando José Fula "Tozé" and Tristão Ernesto, guaranteeing that he will leave the party united, because "the light is rising at the end of the tunnel."
"In this preparatory commission with the group that has challenged me the most all this time that I have been at the head of the party, which is the group of Ngola Kabangu, we are in brotherly talks, I hope that it is not a bandage too, but I believe not. I believe that the men are with us negotiating to actually get the FNLA out of the shameful situation in which it was plunged, because of the internal confusions and because of the refusal to innovate within the party, preserving the character of the 60s," he observed.
