The board of the Angolan National Assembly this Saturday deplored the attitude of the deputies of the parliamentary group UNITA to “lack of ethics and parliamentary decorum” after they spoke out in plenary session.
The reaction followed an extraordinary plenary meeting this Saturday that discussed a proposal to create a possible commission to examine the initiative of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the main opposition party, to remove the Angolan president. Republic, which was rejected by 123 votes against and one abstention.
National Assembly spokesman Manuel Dembo stressed that UNITA deputies “have duties and obligations, not just the rights they seek,” and called for “a sense of the state and respect for constitutionally enshrined democratic rules.”
He also emphasized that deputies must base their actions on a deep connection with the Constitution, rules of procedure and parliamentary ethics.
The plenary session was held in a tense atmosphere: deputies from the two largest parties – the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, in power) and the opposition UNITA – disagreed over the voting method proposed by the President of the National Assembly, Carolina. Cerqueira.
UNITA intended to hold a secret ballot as a way to ensure that all MPs could vote freely, but this intention was opposed by the MPLA.
The plenary session was held behind closed doors, but several UNITA deputies shared videos on social networks showing a tense and noisy atmosphere, with members of the parliamentary group expressing their dissatisfaction and shouting “down with dictatorship” and “shame.”
The MPLA declared, through its secretary for political and electoral affairs, João de Almeida Marins “Ju Martins”, that the process was closed, while UNITA President Adalberto da Costa Júnior understood that “no resolution was adopted at the meeting.” everything” and that “what happened is not in accordance with the law.”
The initiative of the parliamentary group NITA was publicly announced in July of this year; as a basis, it presented a serious violation of the Constitution of the Republic, an encroachment on the democratic rule of law, by undermining the rules for implementing the budget and the market economy. and republican system, as well as practices of corruption, embezzlement, abuse of influence and repeated practices of nepotism.
The document of about 100 pages and more than 200 articles was signed by 90 UNITA deputies, indicating more than 200 documentary evidence and naming 40 citizens as witnesses.
There are 220 deputies in the Angolan parliament: 124 from the MPLA, 90 from UNITA, two from the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), two from the Social Renewal Party (PRS) and two from the Humanist Party of Angola (PGA). .
The MPLA, the party in power since independence in 1975, again won the general elections held in August 2022 but lost one million votes, although it retains an absolute majority.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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