Luanda - The secretary for Information of the MPLA´s Politburo, Rui Falcão, said Thursday that the high level of abstention was at the root of the election results achieved by his party in Luanda Province, the country's largest electoral ward.
According to data from the National Electoral Commission (CNE), the abstention rate in the general elections is in the range of 54,35%. With 97.03 per cent of the votes counted, the MPLA leads with 51.07% , followed by UNITA with 44,5%.
While reacting to the release by the CNE of the provisional results of the 24 August general elections, the politician thanked the citizens who voted for his party.
The official expressed his conviction and promised “we will do everything to build a better country”.
Absolute Majority in Parliament
Rui Falcão welcomed the fact that the MPLA has achieved an absolute majority in the National Assembly (Angolan parliament) which will allow it to continue governing the country in the next five years.
Considering that the electoral results are “contingencies of politics”, he affirmed that “the verdict is popular, the people decided that it should be like this, we’ll continue to make an analysis, in a pondered form, and to conclude where did we go wrong and where we did well”.
In the politician's opinion, democracy is about that, “one day you win and another day you lose, and this is another lesson that we all should learn”.
Rui Falcão recognized that the largest political ward in Angola, that is Luanda, always has a political significance, however it also elects five MPs like the other provinces.
The MPLA spokesman recognizes that though it is a narrow victory, it's always an electoral victory.
“Naturally we would have liked a substantially better result, but that's what democracy is all about and the verdict is popular. So we have to accept the results”, concluded the official.
Provincial Ward
In Luanda Province, the CNE data shows that the MPLA got 33.31%, while UNITA´s 62.59% of the votes give the party a win of three deputies (Mps).
With these results, out of the five deputies foreseen, the MPLA only elects two in the provincial constituency.
The latest provisional results, released tonight by the National Electoral Commission (CNE), give the MPLA 51.07 per cent of the votes (corresponding roughly to 3.1 million votes), followed by UNITA with 44.05 per cent (roughly 2.7 million, 90 parliamentarhy seats secured), and the PRS with 1.13% (70,398 votes, 2 MPs).
The FNLA comes next with 1.05% (65,223/2 MPs), followed by the PHA with 1.01% (63,002/ gaining 2 MPS), then comes the only coalition, CASA-CE, with 0.75% (46,750), a result that does not enable them to a single parliamentary seat, which is the same case with the APN that got 0.48% (29,740) and the P-NJANGO with 0.42% (26,268 votes).
The final results are expected to be announced any time during the weekend.
These are the fifth elections held in Angola since 1992.
