Elections2022: Constitutional Court validates results

 Luanda - The Constitutional Court (TC) on Thursday validated the results of the last general elections in Angola, with victory of the MPLA and its presidential candidate, Joao Lourenço, with 51.17% of the votes.

The confirmation of the victory of the ruling party is followed by the rejection by the court of the appeal filed by UNITA to demand the change, in its favour, of the definitive results of the 24th August general elections.

In its decision on the matter, the TC said it rejected UNITA's appeal due to the non-existence of a prior complaint to the National Electoral Commission (CNE) and due to the insufficiency or ineffectiveness of the evidence presented.

The Constitutional Court found that the evidence presented "did not put in question the overall results of the national tabulation of votes announced by the National Electoral Commission".

This is the second and last appeal rejected by the Constitutional Court regarding the general elections, after CASA-CE's appeal.

The decision ends the phase of complaints against the definitive electoral results announced by the CNE and opens the way for the inauguration of João Lourenço as President of the Republic and of Esperança Maria Francisco da Costa as Vice-President of the Republic.

The 220 elected deputies to the National Assembly are also due to be sworn in, 124 from the MPLA, 90 from UNITA, plus two deputies each for PRS, FNLA and PHA.

In the CNE's ranking, UNITA and its leader Adalberto Costa Júnior came second with 43.95% of the votes, and CASA-CE of Manuel Fernandes was sixth with 0.76 percent.

Both political parties contested the results and requested the TC to intervene, in its comptences of an electoral court , to restore the electoral truth expressed in the ballot boxes.

UNITA wanted a correction of the number of MPs it had been allocated in Luanda, Zaire, Cuando Cubando and Namibe provinces.

CASA-CE, which did not get any MPs comparing to 16 MP´s that it had from the previous legislature, demanded correction of the number of MPs for the provinces of Huambo, Benguela and  Cuanza-Norte, where it claimed to have received fewer votes than were due.

With an abstention rate of 55.18% and the highest in the country's history, out of the roughly 14 million registered voters, the 24th August elections had the participation of 6.454,000 voters (44.82 percent).

CNE data show that the MPLA obtained about 3.209,000 votes corresponding to 124 parliamentary seats against 2.786,000 votes of UNITA for 90 seats.

In third position, Benedito Daniel of PRS won 71,351 votes  (1,14%) two deputies, taking back the third position as the third political force, thus “dislodging”  the CASA-CE coalition.

Next came the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) led by Nimi a Nsimbi, and the newcomer Humanist Party of Angola (PHA), led by Florbela Catarina Malaquias, with two seats each.

The National Patriotic Alliance (APN) of Quintino Moreira and the Nationalist Party for Justice in Angola (P-NJANGO) of Eduardo "Dinho" Chingunji did not win a single parliamentary seat. For this fact, these two political forces are exposed to extinction by the Constitutional Court for having fallen below the 0.5 percent  threshold imposed by law for the survival of political parties.