One day after the general elections and hours after the National Electoral Commission (CNE) announced that the preliminary results give the victory to the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the largest opposition party announced diametrically different numbers, tension in the markets in peripheral areas is evident, admitted the administrator of the Mercado dos 30.
"The UNITA people came here to make a fuss and we had to call the police", said the administrator, António Domingos, to the Lusa agency.
The administrator of the largest market stressed that the alleged supporters of the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) "came to stir up trouble" and "scare people".
"This is a democracy, but UNITA has to wait to have its politicians sworn in", explained António Domingos, speaking to Lusa, flanked by elements of the police forces.
"It was those from UNITA who came here," one of the vendors, who declined to be identified, told Lusa. And soon after, two other young people interrupted and insisted: "We are all fighting for democracy, for change".
"Change" is one of the watchwords of UNITA, the party led by Adalberto Costa Júnior that is trying to remove power from the MPLA, led by João Lourenço, the current President, who is running for a new term.
A few meters away, on the other side of the dirt road from the market, hundreds of people were driven away by the PIR, who summoned those who were in the houses to stay inside, using shouts and orders to retreat, making noise with the sticks hitting metal objects on the way.
According to the administrator, there are records of similar incidents in other markets in the city.
In the municipality of Viana, one of UNITA's strongholds in the capital and where the party has its headquarters, the police apparatus is visible near the places with the greatest agglomeration of people, such as the markets.
