At a press conference called to deny that the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) is holding talks with top leaders of the ruling party on a possible post-electoral transition, the MPLA secretary for electoral political affairs, João Martins, spoke about a set of gratuitous statements "that were made by someone who in Angolan politics should have more responsibility".
The head of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was referring to the leader of the "Galo Negro" party, Adalberto da Costa Júnior.
Martins said that he was approached by the president of the MPLA parliamentary group, in order to make himself available for a meeting with the president of UNITA, of which he gave a note to the president of the party (João Lourenço, also President of the Republic and who is re-candidate for the post) and which took place on the 27th of May, in a hotel in Luanda.
Over the course of three and a half hours, problems of the current political moment were discussed, namely the voter lists and the treatment of the database, as well as the visibility given to UNITA by the public press, but issues related to the transition were not addressed.
"What transition, what business", underlined Martins, adding that, in order to deal with matters of this nature, they would have to be mandated by the party leadership, and not just by its leader, since "power is conquered, not negotiated".
Among the exchanges of views, moments of consultation emerged, but also differences regarding political action in which the MPLA noted that "some of the actions that UNITA was instigating did not support stability".
"There was a clear conviction on the part of the current president [Adalberto da Costa Júnior] that he was predisposed to winning the elections and we, to a direct question that was put to us - if we were afraid of living in a country that was governed and led by him - we replied in a frontal and categorical way, that in Angola there are many lunatics and that I was talking to a lunatic and that if he did not work to win the elections, he would believe that he had no chance of winning the elections", he told journalists.
João Martins also said that, if the idea was eventually created that UNITA would be in good condition to win the elections, this "certainly" resulted from the fact that the MPLA limited mass activities during the pandemic period and during confinement having carried out very few public activities, "unlike some segments of the opposition and protesting sectors of civil society that carried out these activities in defiance of the law".
Therefore, "a false image was created that the MPLA could be isolated, which was not true", because as soon as "the restrictions were lifted, the mobilization capacity was evident", highlighted the leader.
At the meeting, the president of UNITA was also informed that some of the actions he was organizing could have "a subversive character" and that "the subversion was won on 22 February 2002 [when the leader and founder of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi, was killed in combat by the Angolan army] and was defeated by the Angolan State".
"Therefore, we warned that he was not warned to allow any type of actions to have that nature, because then it was not the MPLA that would fight with UNITA, but the Angolan State with its institutions", he stressed.
"As he did in February 2002, he would also do it now if actions that threaten stability, public order, outside the matrix of political contention continue to be carried out", stressed the same official.
According to the MPLA leader, Adalberto da Costa Júnior was also told: "We felt that the current president of UNITA did not control his organization and we told him that he was a term president because he did not have the DNA of UNITA".
The MPLA secretary for electoral political affairs also revealed that they also said that "it was not advised to publish false polls, which had neither a technical file nor sustainability" and that they pointed to a very advantageous performance by UNITA, which could "create the false image that if UNITA loses the August 24 elections it would be due to fraud or [that] the results were manipulated".
Angola holds its fifth general election on 24 August, with the election campaign of the eight competing political forces taking place.
