In an interview with the Lusa agency, in Lisbon, Domingos Simões Pereira said that the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) "has the results it has because those who exercise the administration opened up and allowed there to be some contestation or a free statement of what is the will of the Angolan people".
The Constitutional Court (TC) proclaimed the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and its candidate, João Lourenço, as winners with 51.17 percent of the votes, followed by UNITA, with 43.95 percent, having failed the appeal of electoral disputes of the main opposition party.
"Today the results that we found in Angola must be read as the result of an openness by someone who understands that times are different and that it is necessary to give everyone the opportunity to express their views", said the leader of the PAIGC, a party he maintains. close relations with the MPLA.
Domingos Simões Pereira highlighted the result of UNITA in Luanda, referring that it was "more than 60 percent of the population saying that they do not agree with who is governing. This is a sign of new times and a sign of freedom and You have to know how to appreciate it."
Emphasizing that he speaks in his personal name and not his party or his country, the PAIGC leader refused to make "a qualitative assessment" of the results of the elections in Angola, but said that he appreciates "the way in which President João Lourenço has tried to take on an anti-corruption agenda".
Regarding the contestation of the results by UNITA, the party leader said that "it is necessary to have faith that the institutions work".
"There was a pronouncement by the CNE, there was an appeal to the Constitutional Court and it is the result of the Constitutional Court that must be authentic," he said.
Domingos Simões Pereira welcomed the Angolan people, "who have shown great patriotic sense" and said he believed that João Lourenço would "talk with all sides, respect the will expressed by the Angolan people and govern according to the expectations created".
"Whoever is in power and wants to stay in power at any price does not take these measures, does not carry out these reforms, does not assume the need to control and fight corruption. people and nation first", he concluded.
