Angola polls: 47-yr ruling MPLA leads with 51.7%, UNITA 44.5
Angola’s nearly 5 decades governing MPLA remains in power as Incumbent President Joao Lourenco is in the lead, with huge gap against his closest contender opposition leader Adalberto Costa Junior. According to provisional figures announced by the National Electoral Commission (CNE), when 97 percent of the votes had been counted, the party that has ruled Angola since independence won the general elections with 51.7 percent and 124 seats.
While UNITA won with 44.5 percent and 90 seats in a 230-seat parliament. Lourenço is re-elected president of the republic, with a turnout of just over 45 percent.
Hours before the CNE announcement, the main opposition party presented the figures of the parallel count it is carrying out, based on the minutes of polling stations. The results are not the same, but UNITA’s count only referred to one third of the ballots.
“We want to hope that there will be common sense, so that we can take the minutes, us and them, look at them one by one, add them up and arrive at the same results, ” said Ruben Sicato from UNITA.
UNITA also complained about the announcement of provisional results by the National Electoral Commission.
“The announcement of provisional results by the cne are being made not based on what the organic law on general elections establishes which denotes that electoral results may be being produced which are not the true ones,” expressedMehaela Webba, another member of UNITA.
For the MPLA, there are no doubts about the winner, but there are conclusions to take from this suffrage.
“We are in a pedagogical process. We are all learning. Some need to learn how to lose and others need to reinforce the way of being in victory. That is what we will try to do. We were open to any result. We won, we won with an absolute majority, we will respect that and we will work for the good of our people,” emphasized Rui Falcao, a member of MPLA.
For the MPLA the match is over but UNITA promises to take the game to extra time. The electoral commission is yet to announce the final results.
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