Adalberto Costa Júnior, who was speaking this Saturday at the end of a march promoted by the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), in favor of "hope, freedom and non-partisanship of institutions", said that "the people know who won the elections".
"I want to tell everyone that we continue to maintain the faith and focus and the same dedication and strength of combat and struggle, the same as always", said the UNITA leader, having thanked all Angolans, inside and outside the country, for having "voted in conscience".
The president of UNITA said that his party and partners were pressured to take to the streets to win over the institutions, after the official publication of the results of the elections, which gave the MPLA victory.
"There were many who expect us to voice the street as the way to conquer institutions, there were many who pressured us and expected us to give voice to demonstrations at a time when we had the streets full of repression", he said.
According to the politician, the pressure for UNITA to take to the streets to claim the electoral results was a "banana peel", but, he observed, "we have political maturity today".
"And we think that the price of power is not worth everything, it's not worth the bloodbath of my people, it's not worth it, it's not lack of courage, on the contrary," he said, criticizing the considerable presence of the defense and security forces on the street "in combat readiness".
For Adalberto Costa Júnior, who was speaking before an audience of hundreds of activists, friends, sympathizers and members of civil society who participated in the march, "it is not normal for those who won elections to put repression on the street."
"Is it normal for those who received the majority vote of their people to be afraid of the people? It is normal to take the maximum apparatus of repression and put them in a demonstration of those who are afraid", he questioned.
Hundreds of citizens, including leaders, activists, sympathizers, partners of the United Patriotic Front (FPU) and friends of UNITA, members of civil society and even street vendors participated this Saturday in the "March of Hope and Freedom", which began along the Santa Ana cemetery and ended at Largo das Escolas, in Luanda.
The three faces of the FPU, namely Adalberto Costa Júnior, Filomeno Vieira Lopes (president of the Democratic Bloc (BD)) and Abel Chivukuvuku (coordinator of the political project PRA JÁ Servir Angola) and several elected deputies also participated in the march.
A huge police cordon accompanied the march along the entire length of Avenida Deolinda Rodrigues and part of Avenida Ho-Chi-Min, where the participants, mostly young people, chanted "songs of freedom".
"We demand a truly democratic State, we are in favor of peace, we want transparent media, we want our vote and we demand the release of Luther King and Ta Nice Neutro", both activists arrested since January, were some of the phrases written on the posters that wielded.
Regarding the general elections, held a month ago, whose UNITA, which elected 90 deputies, contests the results, despite taking a seat in parliament, Adalberto Costa Júnior said that the official abstention "was not true".
"This abstention counted on the dead, it counted on duplication of inscriptions, it is not true, Angolans voted in conscience and made history", he stressed.
In the opinion of the leader of the "little brothers", what determines power is a set of two realities, namely legitimacy and legality, considering that Angola "lives a drama".
"There are those who have the legitimacy and there are those who have the self-imposed, self-acquired legality and this is the reality", he stressed.
The UNITA leader promised to carry out "as many marches as necessary", similar to this Saturday, to continue the struggle within the institutions and to use "without limits" his power as advisor to the Angolan President to "advise João Lourenço on the need to build a country of all Angolans".
He also urged the political power for the need to implement the municipalities in 2023 and "demanded" the release of "all political prisoners to together" build "a better Angola".
The need for the release of political prisoners was also reinforced by the activist Dito Dali, who reiterated "unconditional support" for the FPU leaders: "They robbed us of the elections, but they did not rob us of the will to continue fighting", he shot.
Filomeno Vieira Lopes, president of the BD, considered that the march was a moment to "reaffirm that the people effectively voted for the alternation to Angola".
For his part, Francisco Viana, former MPLA leader and elected UNITA deputy for the 2022-2027 legislature, criticized the non-publication of the electoral minutes by the National Electoral Commission to argue that UNITA "was stolen".
