Rédaction Africa Links 24 with ANGONOTÍCIAS
Published on 2024-03-03 20:12:09
Isaías Samakuva, former president of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the main opposition party in Angola, argues that it makes no sense to talk about third presidential terms in Angola.
The Angolan Constitution stipulates that elected heads of state serve only two terms, each of five years, and the idea has been brewing, with analysts from the Economist Intelligence Unit arguing in November 2023 that President João Lourenço will circumvent the constitutional impossibility of running for a third time in the election.
The position of President of the Republic in Angola is filled indirectly, with the first candidate from the most voted party being designated for the head of state. This is what happened in 2012, with the entry into force of the new constitutional text, when José Eduardo dos Santos served his last presidential term, defeating Isaías Samakuva. And again in 2017, when he, on that occasion, lost to João Lourenço, who is now serving his second term after defeating Samakuva’s successor in the leadership of UNITA, Adalberto da Costa Júnior, in 2022.
Samakuva said he warned João Lourenço that “the country would boil” if a third term were to be implemented. “In fact, I raised this issue clearly with him. I told him: ‘I don’t know if it’s you who is putting this forward. If it’s your, your collaborators’. But he didn’t answer me,” said the former party leader. In December 2022, João Lourenço denied seeking a third term. “We have just come out of the elections now. The next ones will be in 2027. My answer is given, maybe we can talk about it more towards 2027,” said the President in another interview with French media in May 2023.
In Lisbon, where he traveled to present journalist Xavier de Figueiredo’s book about UNITA’s founder, Jonas Savimbi, Samakuva considered that there are “evasions” when João Lourenço addresses the issue. “And this fuels the story of the third term,” he concluded.
Isaías Samakuva said that in the conversation he had with João Lourenço, he warned him that a third term would only “bring problems.” “I told him that the third term will not give him anything. On the contrary, it will give him problems. It will put the country in turmoil. Because it’s not right. It’s not right because it is established in the Constitution that it is so, and we must follow what is in the Constitution,” he reiterated.
Read the original article (Portuguese) on Angonoticias
