In statements to Lusa, Adalberto da Costa Júnior commented on Monday's press conference in which the MPLA secretary for political and electoral affairs, João "Jú" Martins, in which he denied the existence of negotiations and nicknamed the leader of the UNITA of "lunatic" for thinking about winning the elections.
"Now you come to say that we didn't address any of this? So what did we talk about for three and a half hours", he questioned, referring to the meeting he had with UNITA leaders in which, according to João Martins, the transition issue was not addressed.
For Adalberto da Costa Júnior, the MPLA's reaction was due to the contacts it had on Saturday in Cazenga, one of the most populous and densely populated municipalities in Luanda, after UNITA and other opposition parties were forced to cancel a march in favor of transparency and legality of the electoral process on the recommendation of the provincial government of Luanda.
"They felt exposed" said the leader of the "Black Rooster" party, expressing himself "happy with the intervention of João Martins".
During his contact with the population, according to his account, Adalberto da Costa Júnior defended compliance with electoral laws, insisted on the existence of willful misconduct due to irregularities in the electoral roll and reaffirmed that there had been contacts to negotiate the transition with the MPLA.
"I wanted to share with the Angolans that on the side of the UNITA leadership there have been bridges for transition, bridges for dialogue", he underlined.
"I think that the more meetings, the more dialogues there are, the better for the country, in a democracy the alternations occur", he stressed, urging the MPLA to "get out of this mindset, because Angola is not a private property of the MPLA".
He also regretted that João Martins had said that some of the actions that UNITA was organizing would have a "subversive character" and that the "subversion was won on 22 February 2002", in an allusion to the death in combat of Jonas Savimbi, founder of that party, the biggest of the opposition and that for almost 30 years waged a war against the government forces supported by the MPLA.
"A party's campaign actions are not attacks against the security of the State", replied Adalberto da Costa Júnior, considering that by considering that the actions of the UNITA president are an attack against democracy, the MPLA leader "helped people realizing that it is time for the MPLA to go home, urgently".
Adalberto da Costa Júnior also accused the party that has governed Angola since independence, in 1975, of wanting to maintain power at any cost.
"He (Jú Martins) said that while they were here we would not win because they were the ones who won the war. So the problem is not with UNITA, it is not with Adalberto, it is with the people", he said, stressing that "the people is attentive and is mature".
The president of UNITA told Lusa that "the MPLA defends illegalities to stay in power and threatens with instability".
Asked if he felt threatened, he says he is prepared for it.
"I will not give change to banana peels. Over the years the MPLA has been in the habit of provoking, but it will not respond with acts of violence and, therefore, they are getting nervous", considered the political leader.
"That way the people know that the MPLA has a program to maintain power at any cost", he stressed.
João Martins said, on Monday, 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 de Angola and who is reapplying for the position) and which took place on 27 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".
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.
Angola holds its fifth general elections on 24th of August (after 1992, 2008, 2012, 2017, all won by the MPLA) with the electoral campaign running with eight competing political forces.
